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Or, California just needs to increase its battery storage capacity some more. (This week they announced storage systems now already have over 10,000 megawatts

Or, California just needs to increase its battery storage capacity some more. (This week they announced storage systems now already have over 10,000 megawatts in capacity — "about 20% of the 52,000 megawatts the state says is needed to meet its climate goals.") https://ca.news.yahoo.com/california-battery-storage-increasing-rapidly-230621296.html https://ca.news.yahoo.com/california-battery-storage-increas...

_heimdall 2y ago
That will be a tough game to chase long term as batteries need to be removed and replaced regularly. Assuming the storage capacity needs continue to grow, CA would need to replace larger and larger stocks of batteries on the scale of 5-15 years depending on what kind of warranty the battery manufacturers are providing.
- Atotalnoob 2y ago
  Batteries don’t have to be the traditional ones we use and think of. They can be things like pumping water up a hill and releasing it to spin a turbine or using rocks storing heat. The storage capacity can be added, it’s just don’t going to be banks of lead or lithium batteries
  - h0l0cube 2y ago
    And for lithium batteries, maintaining an overcapacity drastically increases the lifetime by reducing the depth of the cycle. e.g., you get vastly more cycles at %50 DoD vs %80. This would increase the lifespan to be many decades
  - kemiller 2y ago
    California is already planning a giant off-river reservoir that will be dependent on pumping to fill. If it could be set up to kick in instead of curtailment it could be a win win.
  - nradov 2y ago
    The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) makes it extremely difficult to build new pumped storage facilities. It's possible in principle but will take many years to get through the construction permits and inevitable lawsuits.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    California isn't exactly known for water management practices, though sure there are storage systems that use kinetic potential as a battery. In theory that can be used at very large scales, if the water and elevation is available for use. Is be really curious how the math works out with regards to how much water would be required for say 3 days of use in LA. That may even be an over estimate of storage needs given how few rainy days they get.
- conradev 2y ago
  That is assuming all batteries are lithium-ion, but the state is going for a larger mix of storage tech. As just one example, iron-air batteries: > The CEC is supporting this project through its Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) program, a fund dedicated to accelerating the implementation of non-lithium technologies offering 8+ hours of energy storage. Form Energy will use the grant funds to develop and operate the project, and PG&E will provide land and an interconnection point at the substation site. https://formenergy.com/form-energy-awarded-30m-grant-from-the-california-energy-commission-to-deploy-first-multi-day-energy-storage-project-in-california/ https://formenergy.com/form-energy-awarded-30m-grant-from-th... Stationary storage is a different ballgame, with different trade-offs i.e. you can trade density for cycle count or cost
ssl-3 2y ago
"10,000 megawatts" is not a measure of storage capacity.
- hirsin 2y ago
  For some reason grid storage reporting always seems to use a power metric instead of storage metric, which makes no sense to me. I've seen this in a half dozen stories, and found that even the government reports do this. I think it stems from someone reusing a column to represent both storage and power across generators and batteries.
  - ssl-3 2y ago
    Yep. It's a measure that makes perfect sense for conventional electricity production: 10,000MW of aggregated coal generation can hypothetically produce 10,000MW more-or-less indefinitely, as long as it keeps being fed things like fuel, water, and maintanence. But it doesn't make any sense at all, by itself, for energy storage: A net 10,000MW battery might be able to produce 10,000MW, but for how long can that output be sustained? Unlike a group of coal plants, it absolutely cannot do this indefinitely; at some point, that battery will become completely discharged. It takes at least two figures to describe a working bucket of energy (whether that bucket is Lithium cells or pumped storage or whatever): The capacity (megawatt-hours is a fine figure here, and units like Joules also work), and the maximum input/output (and plain megawatts works fine for this part). Using only one figure doesn't really describe anything at all. I don't know when or why we stopped doing this, but it's misinformative in a way that leads to a bad generalized understanding of the these concepts with the populace that is actually paying for all of this stuff.
    - pixl97 2y ago
      I mean during the great texas power outage natural gas plants ran out of fuel because of supply issues that were not typically supply issues it would be more honest if every power plant also listed it's on hand 'fuel battery'. Now I'm sure they may do this with ERCOT, but it's not something typically reported.

_heimdall 2y ago

That will be a tough game to chase long term as batteries need to be removed and replaced regularly. Assuming the storage capacity needs continue to grow, CA would need to replace larger and larger stocks of batteries on the scale of 5-15 years depending on what kind of warranty the battery manufacturers are providing.

Atotalnoob 2y ago
Batteries don’t have to be the traditional ones we use and think of. They can be things like pumping water up a hill and releasing it to spin a turbine or using rocks storing heat. The storage capacity can be added, it’s just don’t going to be banks of lead or lithium batteries
- h0l0cube 2y ago
  And for lithium batteries, maintaining an overcapacity drastically increases the lifetime by reducing the depth of the cycle. e.g., you get vastly more cycles at %50 DoD vs %80. This would increase the lifespan to be many decades
- kemiller 2y ago
  California is already planning a giant off-river reservoir that will be dependent on pumping to fill. If it could be set up to kick in instead of curtailment it could be a win win.
- nradov 2y ago
  The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) makes it extremely difficult to build new pumped storage facilities. It's possible in principle but will take many years to get through the construction permits and inevitable lawsuits.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  California isn't exactly known for water management practices, though sure there are storage systems that use kinetic potential as a battery. In theory that can be used at very large scales, if the water and elevation is available for use. Is be really curious how the math works out with regards to how much water would be required for say 3 days of use in LA. That may even be an over estimate of storage needs given how few rainy days they get.
conradev 2y ago
That is assuming all batteries are lithium-ion, but the state is going for a larger mix of storage tech. As just one example, iron-air batteries: > The CEC is supporting this project through its Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) program, a fund dedicated to accelerating the implementation of non-lithium technologies offering 8+ hours of energy storage. Form Energy will use the grant funds to develop and operate the project, and PG&E will provide land and an interconnection point at the substation site. https://formenergy.com/form-energy-awarded-30m-grant-from-the-california-energy-commission-to-deploy-first-multi-day-energy-storage-project-in-california/ https://formenergy.com/form-energy-awarded-30m-grant-from-th... Stationary storage is a different ballgame, with different trade-offs i.e. you can trade density for cycle count or cost

ssl-3 2y ago

"10,000 megawatts" is not a measure of storage capacity.

hirsin 2y ago
For some reason grid storage reporting always seems to use a power metric instead of storage metric, which makes no sense to me. I've seen this in a half dozen stories, and found that even the government reports do this. I think it stems from someone reusing a column to represent both storage and power across generators and batteries.
- ssl-3 2y ago
  Yep. It's a measure that makes perfect sense for conventional electricity production: 10,000MW of aggregated coal generation can hypothetically produce 10,000MW more-or-less indefinitely, as long as it keeps being fed things like fuel, water, and maintanence. But it doesn't make any sense at all, by itself, for energy storage: A net 10,000MW battery might be able to produce 10,000MW, but for how long can that output be sustained? Unlike a group of coal plants, it absolutely cannot do this indefinitely; at some point, that battery will become completely discharged. It takes at least two figures to describe a working bucket of energy (whether that bucket is Lithium cells or pumped storage or whatever): The capacity (megawatt-hours is a fine figure here, and units like Joules also work), and the maximum input/output (and plain megawatts works fine for this part). Using only one figure doesn't really describe anything at all. I don't know when or why we stopped doing this, but it's misinformative in a way that leads to a bad generalized understanding of the these concepts with the populace that is actually paying for all of this stuff.
  - pixl97 2y ago
    I mean during the great texas power outage natural gas plants ran out of fuel because of supply issues that were not typically supply issues it would be more honest if every power plant also listed it's on hand 'fuel battery'. Now I'm sure they may do this with ERCOT, but it's not something typically reported.