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California Moves to Replace Gas Plants with Batteries from Tesla

3 points by philipkglass 8y ago

philipkglass 8y ago
Additional details in this GTM story: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/pges-recording-breaking-battery-proposal-wins-loses https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/pges-recording-... ...four projects, totaling 567.5 megawatts/2,270 megawatt-hours, to go into the transmission-constrained Moss Landing area south of the San Francisco Bay. The portfolio includes a 300-megawatt/1,200-megawatt-hour system that Vistra Energy would build in an existing power plant owned by its subsidiary Dynegy, as well as a 182.5-megawatt/730-megawatt-hour Tesla system that PG&E would own at a substation nearby. This is a lot of capacity and storage compared to recent projects. The Hornsdale Power Reserve that Tesla installed in South Australia last year is "only" 100 MW/129 MWh.
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  > This is a lot of capacity and storage compared to recent projects. California's policy makers and utilities are all in at this point.
masonic 8y ago
Storage is fine, but it doesn't replace the lost supply. Do they just plan to recharge off the grid during off-peak hours?
- philipkglass 8y ago
  Basically, yes. Recall that in California the cheapest production is actually mid-day now, since that's when solar produces most strongly. There's a chart here that shows renewable production over the course of the day and includes battery charging/discharging in another chart at the bottom: http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx Looking at November 8, 2018 you can see that batteries began charging around 7:30 AM as solar power started ramping up for the day, and switched over to discharging around 4:00 PM. There were also brief excursions to discharging from charging in between to deal with smaller fluctuations. If you compare that supply chart to the net demand chart for the same time, you can see why the batteries are mostly charging in that time period: http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/default.aspx http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/default.aspx There's a big "scoop" taken out of net demand by solar in the middle of the day. After the early-evening demand peak there's often a smaller "scoop" taken out by late night wind power. In states with better wind resources, like Texas, the net demand reduction is usually in the middle of the night instead of the middle of the day. http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/CURRENT_DAYCOP_HSL.html http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/CURRENT_DAYCOP_HSL.htm... Today's wind generation in Texas is up past 12,000 MW as of 11:00 PM but dropped as low as 2,000 MW at noon.
Ice_cream_suit 8y ago
"batteries from Tesla" == Batteries from Panasonic, rebranded , repackaged and resold by Tesla.
- btian 8y ago
  "GPUs from nVidia" == GPUs from TSMC, rebranded, repackaged and resold by nVidia "CPUs from AMD" == CPUs from TSMC, rebranded, repackaged and resold by AMD...

3 points by philipkglass 8y ago

Additional details in this GTM story: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/pges-recording-breaking-battery-proposal-wins-loses https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/pges-recording-... ...four projects, totaling 567.5 megawatts/2,270 megawatt-hours, to go into the transmission-constrained Moss Landing area south of the San Francisco Bay. The portfolio includes a 300-megawatt/1,200-megawatt-hour system that Vistra Energy would build in an existing power plant owned by its subsidiary Dynegy, as well as a 182.5-megawatt/730-megawatt-hour Tesla system that PG&E would own at a substation nearby. This is a lot of capacity and storage compared to recent projects. The Hornsdale Power Reserve that Tesla installed in South Australia last year is "only" 100 MW/129 MWh.

Gibbon1 8y ago
> This is a lot of capacity and storage compared to recent projects. California's policy makers and utilities are all in at this point.

masonic 8y ago

Storage is fine, but it doesn't replace the lost supply. Do they just plan to recharge off the grid during off-peak hours?

philipkglass 8y ago
Basically, yes. Recall that in California the cheapest production is actually mid-day now, since that's when solar produces most strongly. There's a chart here that shows renewable production over the course of the day and includes battery charging/discharging in another chart at the bottom: http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx Looking at November 8, 2018 you can see that batteries began charging around 7:30 AM as solar power started ramping up for the day, and switched over to discharging around 4:00 PM. There were also brief excursions to discharging from charging in between to deal with smaller fluctuations. If you compare that supply chart to the net demand chart for the same time, you can see why the batteries are mostly charging in that time period: http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/default.aspx http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/default.aspx There's a big "scoop" taken out of net demand by solar in the middle of the day. After the early-evening demand peak there's often a smaller "scoop" taken out by late night wind power. In states with better wind resources, like Texas, the net demand reduction is usually in the middle of the night instead of the middle of the day. http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/CURRENT_DAYCOP_HSL.html http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/CURRENT_DAYCOP_HSL.htm... Today's wind generation in Texas is up past 12,000 MW as of 11:00 PM but dropped as low as 2,000 MW at noon.

Ice_cream_suit 8y ago

"batteries from Tesla" == Batteries from Panasonic, rebranded , repackaged and resold by Tesla.

btian 8y ago
"GPUs from nVidia" == GPUs from TSMC, rebranded, repackaged and resold by nVidia "CPUs from AMD" == CPUs from TSMC, rebranded, repackaged and resold by AMD...