Long-time reader Chris P. pointed me to this informative blog post by the Energy Institute at Haas (link) that compares different ways to plot time-series data with clear seasonality. The "canonical" plot for this data set is a column chart. This chart is made by CAISO, the California Independent System Operator. The data concern the amount of energy that is "curtailed" at solar and wind power generators for each month of each year. Curtailment is a measure of "idle capacity," the amount of additional energy that could have been produced based on the sunshine or wind that was available but wasn't produced due to other constraints. (I don't think I completely grasp the import of the curtailment metric. It appears curtailment implies that some other factors were limiting energy production. Wouldn't it be more actionable to focus on those constraints, as opposed to a factor that is abundant and effectively free? Let's focus on the visualization in this post, though.)The column chart…
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