The beginning of the replacement of gas and coal plants by renewables.

[Old Rocks]

By 2021, electricity use in the west Los Angeles area may be in for a climate change-fighting evolution.

For many years, the tradition has been that on midsummer afternoons, engineers will turn on what they call a “peaker,” a natural gas-burning power plant In Long Beach. It is needed to help the area’s other power plants meet the day’s peak electricity consumption. Thus, as air conditioners max out and people arriving home from work turn on their televisions and other appliances, the juice will be there.

Five years from now, if current plans work out, the “peaker” will be gone, replaced by the world’s largest storage battery, capable of holding and delivering over 100 megawatts of power an hour for four hours. The customary afternoon peak will still be there, but the battery will be able to handle it without the need for more fossil fuels. It will have spent the morning charging up with cheap solar power that might have otherwise been wasted.

Early the next morning, the battery will be ready for a second peak that happens when people want hot water and, again, turn on their appliances. It has spent the night sucking up cheap power, most of it from wind turbines.

The politics for this to happen are now in place because California’s Public Utilities Commission set a target requiring utilities to build their capacity to store energy, to use more renewable energy and to cut the state’s greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. The economics are there, too, because the local utility, Southern California Edison Co., picked the designer of the battery, AES Corp., an Arlington, Va., company, against 1,800 other offers to replace the peaker.

World's Largest Storage Battery Will Power Los Angeles

As Tesla and others get their battery plants up to speed, wind and solar will be rapidly replacing fossil fuel plants. And the grid will be more stable and robust.

 

[fncceo]

By 2021, electricity use in the west Los Angeles area may be in for a climate change-fighting evolution.

For many years, the tradition has been that on midsummer afternoons, engineers will turn on what they call a “peaker,” a natural gas-burning power plant In Long Beach. It is needed to help the area’s other power plants meet the day’s peak electricity consumption. Thus, as air conditioners max out and people arriving home from work turn on their televisions and other appliances, the juice will be there.

Five years from now, if current plans work out, the “peaker” will be gone, replaced by the world’s largest storage battery, capable of holding and delivering over 100 megawatts of power an hour for four hours. The customary afternoon peak will still be there, but the battery will be able to handle it without the need for more fossil fuels. It will have spent the morning charging up with cheap solar power that might have otherwise been wasted.

Early the next morning, the battery will be ready for a second peak that happens when people want hot water and, again, turn on their appliances. It has spent the night sucking up cheap power, most of it from wind turbines.

The politics for this to happen are now in place because California’s Public Utilities Commission set a target requiring utilities to build their capacity to store energy, to use more renewable energy and to cut the state’s greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. The economics are there, too, because the local utility, Southern California Edison Co., picked the designer of the battery, AES Corp., an Arlington, Va., company, against 1,800 other offers to replace the peaker.

World's Largest Storage Battery Will Power Los Angeles

As Tesla and others get their battery plants up to speed, wind and solar will be rapidly replacing fossil fuel plants. And the grid will be more stable and robust.

The only renewable energy source that can replace oil at this time is ...

 

[Old Rocks]

Grid-scale battery storage ready to go in Australia: Garnaut
By Sophie Vorrath on 3 August 2016

Leading Australian economist and energy policy advisor Ross Garnaut has called for the adoption of grid-scale battery storage on Australia’s National Electricity Market, which he says would provide an “immediate” solution to integrating increasing amounts of grid-connected wind and solar and preventing future electricity price spikes.

Economist Ross Garnaut

In an opinion piece published in the Australian Financial Review on Wednesday, Garnaut – who currently chairs integrated community renewables and storage provider ZEN Energy, as well as the recently launched IIG Solar Fund – said the recent South Australian “energy crisis” had highlighted the need for urgent energy market reforms.

In particular, he said, a solution was needed to stabilise the short-term variations in supply frequency and price.

“An immediate answer is grid-scale batteries, which are being deployed in other developed countries to balance increasing volumes of wind and solar energy,” Garnaut wrote.

“Batteries can respond to the need to add or absorb power in less than a second – much more quickly than gas generators,” he said.

“If optimised to maximise value in provision of grid stability services, the battery can store surplus power from excess generation from the midday sun or overnight wind for use in the evening and morning peaks at total costs that are lower than the prices of wholesale hedge contracts, or than exposure to the wholesale market at these times.

Garnet also said that the application of grid-scale solar and battery storage solutions could be of particular benefit to major industrials, to lower total costs of power.

Grid-scale battery storage ready to go in Australia: Garnaut

Installations are starting around the world.

 

[Moonglow]

Natural gas is not a renewable energy source...

 

[Pete7469]

Bed wetters told us that in 1970 Petrol would peak.

They insisted an new ice age was on the horizon because of petrol.

Why do people still listen to these sniveling bed wetters who are ALWAYS WRONG?

 

[Correll]

I will believe it, after the change over has been made and we see a couple of successful years.

 

[Manonthestreet]

exactly how big of a solar array is going to be needed to recharge that every day including xtra for cloudy days........

 

[Shrimpbox]

What is plan B? What is the backup in the likely event that the system does not work as advertised? Has anyone discovered which countries will be the OPEC of a battery economy? I am with Corell on this one.

 

[Old Rocks]

Well now, at the moment, the US is. But if the orange clown and the GOP decides to make it difficult for the battery manufactures, there is always Australia, and the Asian countries. This is going to be a worldwide market, and Tesla batteries are being installed in Britain as we post.

Since the target date for the big complex in Los Angeles is 2021, I think we will know how well they work by 2025. That is less than a decade. In cities like Los Angeles, there are square miles of large roofs. Warehouses, shopping centers, manufacturing complexes. These could all be used for solar generation. So there would be very little transmission loss.

 

[TNHarley]

I haven't seen the sun in 2 or 3 weeks. Js

 

[Old Rocks]

Step outside!

 

[Mr. H.]

Natural gas is not a renewable energy source...

Your bowels signify otherwise.

 

[Mr. H.]

Well now, at the moment, the US is. But if the orange clown and the GOP decides to make it difficult for the battery manufactures, there is always Australia, and the Asian countries. This is going to be a worldwide market, and Tesla batteries are being installed in Britain as we post.

Since the target date for the big complex in Los Angeles is 2021, I think we will know how well they work by 2025. That is less than a decade. In cities like Los Angeles, there are square miles of large roofs. Warehouses, shopping centers, manufacturing complexes. These could all be used for solar generation. So there would be very little transmission loss.

None of that shit can be manufactured or brought online without massive fossil fuel and subsidy inputs, Tweedle Dummer.

 

[Moonglow]

Natural gas is not a renewable energy source...

Your bowels signify otherwise.

My bowels were used as an experiment with non-combustible unnatural gas...

 

[Old Rocks]

Well now, at the moment, the US is. But if the orange clown and the GOP decides to make it difficult for the battery manufactures, there is always Australia, and the Asian countries. This is going to be a worldwide market, and Tesla batteries are being installed in Britain as we post.

Since the target date for the big complex in Los Angeles is 2021, I think we will know how well they work by 2025. That is less than a decade. In cities like Los Angeles, there are square miles of large roofs. Warehouses, shopping centers, manufacturing complexes. These could all be used for solar generation. So there would be very little transmission loss.

None of that shit can be manufactured or brought online without massive fossil fuel and subsidy inputs, Tweedle Dummer.

LOL It is being manufactured and put in place as we post. Not only that, Oncor of Texas, the largest utility in Texas, states that the break even point for grid scale batteries is $350 per kw/hr. Tesla is right now sell their batteries for $250 kw/hr. A competitor is selling theirs for $180 kw/hr. Tesla also states that they expect the price to come down as low as $100 kw/hr in a decade. Like solar and wind, it is already a successful technology.

 

[elektra]

but you need oil to make the batteries, you need coal to make the batteries, and like all dumb non-science thinking democrats, what is the technological advance??? To make the World's biggest battery? That is like calling the World's largest Hamburger a marvel and advance in feeding the hungry.

 

[Old Rocks]

Why Tesla Batteries Are Cheap Enough To Prevent New Power Plant


Jeff McMahon ,

CONTRIBUTOR

I cover green technology, energy and the environment from Chicago.

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.


TWEET THIS

• if deployed at the grid level, they could actually lower electric bills
• total customer benefits would significantly exceed costs

Last year, analysts hired by Oncor Electric Delivery Company were toiling away on a study of the costs and benefits of installing enormous batteries on Oncor's grid in Texas. The benefits would surpass the costs, they calculated, if Oncor could buy batteries for $350 per kilowatt hour of capacity—or less. That was the break-even point.

At the time, the cheapest utility-scale batteries cost twice that much, the analysts noted, and some cost nearly ten times that much. But prices were falling, and the analysts predicted batteries might reach the $350 point in 2020.

They didn't have to wait nearly so long.

Tesla's utility-scale Powerpack battery, unveiled late Thursday night, will sell for $250/kWh.

"There's nothing remotely at these price points," said Tesla product architect Elon Musk.

Earlier Thursday night, I was covering a Northwestern University debate on the future of nuclear energy, in which the nuclear critic Arnie Gundersen predicted Tesla's new utility-scale battery would render new-build nuclear plants obsolete. The battery would solve the reliability problem of intermittent solar and wind, he predicted, providing a cheaper alternative to nuclear power's 24-hour output.



Gundersen predicted the cost of the utility-scale battery would fall to 2 cents per kWh of the electricity that passes through it, which in coming years would render renewable energy with reliable storage cheaper than a new nuclear plant. (Nuclear plants currently under construction will deliver electricity costing an estimated ¢16-¢19 per kWh). Gundersen focused on the utility-scale battery, which we would soon learn to call the Powerpack, but most of the press attention in the wake of Musk's announcement has focused on the home battery, the Powerwall, which is both more expensive per kWh and less poised to reap benefits.

Why Tesla Batteries Are Cheap Enough To Prevent New Power Plants

One of Tesla's competitors is offering grid scale batteries for $180 kw/hr. And some of Tesla's batteries are now being installed as we post.