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Giant batteries are transforming the way the U.S. uses electricity
- neonate 2y agohttps://archive.ph/Vj2py https://archive.ph/Vj2py https://web.archive.org/web/20240507100100/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/07/climate/battery-electricity-solar-california-texas.html https://web.archive.org/web/20240507100100/https://www.nytim...
- crackercrews 2y agoDoesn't California pay way more for energy than other states? Not sure it makes sense to look at what they're doing and call it the future. It would be nice if it were free but the cost is something like double neighboring states.
- singhrac 2y agoThe same is starting to be true for Texas as well (which is an example of great market design).
- mrdatawolf 2y agoWinter called. It disagrees with your rosy assessment of the Texas grid's greatness.
- more_corn 2y agoThe greatness of the Texas energy market is the fact that the grid goes down all the time. So deploy solar and a battery so you don’t die in the winter cold and the summer heat.
- EGG_CREAM 2y agoHow is paying a lot for energy not the future? It seems to be the trend worldwide.
- cooper_ganglia 2y agoNuclear fusion has entered the chat.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoSolar and batteries is fusion at a distance with almost no containment, embrittlement, or other technology challenges.
- cryptonector 2y agoBut with albedo changes and other negative environmental impacts. TAANSTAFL. That said, fusion is a long way off.
- itishappy 2y agoWhat's the cost per MWh on that again?
- QuadmasterXLII 2y agoLast I checked, the going rate is roughly 3.5 Billion for 3 MJ. Cost coming down quickly though! Only a couple dozen orders of magnitude to go and it’ll blow solar out of the water!
- pfdietz 2y agoWell, the cost estimate for ARC was $29/W(e,net) for the capital cost of the reactor, or about 2x the cost of Vogtle-3/4 (for entire power plants).
- more_corn 2y agoWe’re so sorry, nuclear fusion is experiencing high latency and packet loss. Please try again in $(10 RANDOM %100) years.
- retrac 2y agoMost of the cost of energy is the fossil fuels themselves, or taxation to discourage use. The cost of photovoltaic power seems to be governed by a scaling law, that has held for several decades now. [1] It is now cheaper than fossil fuels in sunny regions for electricity generation, without subsidy or other incentive. Even cautious estimates of further improvement, produce rather pleasing scenarios a few decades out. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices
- ccgreg 2y agoParts of California pay way more for energy because of starting fires leading to bankruptcy. Other parts of California pay pretty normal rates.
- crackercrews 2y agoWhat parts pay normal rates? Are they heavily dependent upon solar, wind, and batteries? Or are they using gas or nuclear?
- pmalynin 2y agoIf you live in Santa Clara your rate will be around $0.166 per kWh. I think a lot of folks there have solar. And by 2026 they say they will have 50% of electricity sourced via sustainable means.
- crackercrews 2y agoI hear it is 2x to 3x that much depending on time of day in Santa Clara. Also, people built solar when there were different rules. The new rules make it much less advantageous.
- itishappy 2y ago> I hear it is 2x to 3x that much depending on time of day in Santa Clara. Sounds like an amazing opportunity to make bank trading energy off-hours (as modeled by TX). Guess what technology enables exactly this!
- crackercrews 2y agoBatteries charged by natural gas?
- itishappy 2y agoThat's right, batteries! They enable us to capitalize on energy price fluctuations. You can of course charge them however you like, but I have a feeling Santa Clara's purported 3x price fluctuations are not due entirely to natural gas.
- standeven 2y agoMost of California’s electrical costs are due to transmission and distribution, and I believe a lot of those costs stem from reducing power-related wildfire risks. Last time I checked, 11 states received the majority of their electricity from renewable sources, and 10/11 had cheaper rates than the national average, with California being the exception.
- crackercrews 2y agoThis probably includes states with abundant hydro power. That's a much cheaper reliable source of renewable energy.
- hammock 2y agoPG&E (California's electric utility) books over $2 billion a year in profit - the equivalent of a $110 charge per month on every California household's bill at their 12.5% profit margin. Despite that, they claim insolvency and fight payouts to fire-injured taxpayers
- zone411 2y agoThey claim insolvency? What are you talking about? They went through bankruptcy in 2019-2020. 4 years ago.
- hackernewds 2y agoI pay $100 per month, this calculation can't be right.
- briffle 2y agoBusinesses and farms use WAY more power than the average home.
- pfdietz 2y agoI wonder how much of the costs are due to "negawatts", investment in energy efficiency. Do that enough and you layer large capital costs on the system that the utility can charge for.
- exoverito 2y agoExactly. In San Diego the peak electricity price is $0.75/kWH, the highest in the continental USA. There is literally a functional nuclear reactor sitting idle a few miles north at San Onofre, and NIMBYs oppose nearly everything all new construction and upzoning. California is not a good model for almost anything these days, just look at the high speed rail project. Cost of living is worsening for the middle and lower classes who are emigrating to other states. The government is corrupt and inefficient, spending vast sums on homelessness while achieving effectively nothing. Progressives can't blame anyone but themselves since California is a one party state with no real opposition.
- pfdietz 2y agoA nuclear plant will earn money based on wholesale prices, not retail prices, and certainly not one-time peak retail prices. Wholesale prices are much lower. Note that for much of the day it's around $0.04/kWh. Batteries will reduce the evening peak. https://thundersaidenergy.com/downloads/california-electricity-prices-by-hour/ https://thundersaidenergy.com/downloads/california-electrici... Calling SONGS-2 or 3 functional is a stretch given their steam generator problems.
- beembeem 2y agoIt would be worth looking at your investor-owned utility which has had an energy monopoly for half a century and has little incentive to innovate.
- robotbikes 2y agoOne party rule is almost never a good thing over the long run as politicians tend to become more self-serving and corrupt the longer they don't have to worry about being held accountable to voters. Instead they worry more about being accountable to their party leaders and funders who try to maintain the status-quo. Not sure the duopoly we have in the USA is preferable compared to say a robust democracy with smaller parties forming coalitions.
- unethical_ban 2y agoTake 30-60 minutes and read up on ranked choice voting, if you aren't familiar. I talk to a lot of people about it and the idea that we can vote any other way seems foreign to most. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting A more laymans' terms comic that explains it with some FAQ built in: https://www.chickennation.com/voting/ https://www.chickennation.com/voting/ It won't instantly change the world, but it will allow people to vote their true conscience vs. strategic voting, and allows smaller parties a chance at real power.
- maherbeg 2y agoTexas could be a good example that is ramping up more battery usage without having massive energy prices. Granted the energy system in Texas needs other changes (feb 2021 winter storm for instance!) but it could end up being a good template in the long run.
- crackercrews 2y agoThey use natural gas to charge up their batteries. [1] This is a different use case than California. 1: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/energy-storage/texas-will-add-more-grid-batteries-than-any-other-state-in-2024 https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/energy-storage/texas-wi...
- itishappy 2y agoThe article mentions this: > In Texas, many batteries today are actually increasing carbon-dioxide emissions, according to one analysis. That’s because operators focus on maximizing revenue and sometimes charge with coal or gas power. Sounds like they're still using using environmental externalities to subsidize their costs. Regardless, the results are the same. Batteries are the future.
- crackercrews 2y agoPeople are leaving California because it's too expensive. It's nice to internalize externalities. But if the result is that people leave then it's not really solving the problem. You've just shifted the emissions to Texas. Same for manufacturing that goes to China.
- itishappy 2y agoThis assumes the losses to emigration are higher than the efficiency improvements. I suspect that's not how it works out in practice, but I don't have the data to support this. It's also reasonable to assume internalizing externalities can drive efficiency improvements everywhere. Would batteries by as efficient and available for installation in TX if CA hadn't subsidized them for a decade prior?
- hackernewds 2y agodo they pay more, or are they charged more? there is a difference
- bcatanzaro 2y agoOf all the non-metric units in use today, watt-hours has to be the worst. It causes so much confusion. A Pulitzer Prize winning institution reporting on our climate and energy crisis can’t get it right: “Over the past three years, battery storage capacity on the nation’s grids has grown tenfold, to 16,000 megawatts.” Gigajoules were right there!
- zdragnar 2y agoPower plant generation is usually described in watts, because the amount is usually constant (barring solar and wind) as needed. Grid scale batteries are treated as alternate supplies of energy, but yes, they are storage, and cannot indefinitely run at a constant output. That's the confusion. Directly comparing them is not useful, except when describing a finite time span. Gigajoules doesn't really help clarify the confusion, because it doesn't change that they're not directly comparable.
- cryptonector 2y agoFor batteries you need two measures at minimum: power (what you can get out when the battery is fully?/half?/?? charged) and energy. But there's more because a battery's power output might not be stable, and it might not be linear with remaining charge.
- bcatanzaro 2y agoThe article says "battery storage capacity" - the plaintext reading of this is referring to energy and they messed up the units. As per usual.
- epistasis 2y agoDon't stop reading there! The next three words are "on the nation's grids" (at least in the first occurrence of the phrase). When dealing with grids, capacity always refers to power measurements. The journalists did not mess up anything, they are actually using the correct units used by people who run grids, build grid assets, plan grids, etc. The only people who are confused are those who don't know about grids, but know a few things about electricity in other contexts.
- riffic 2y agokinetic to potential energy storage (like hydroelectric pumped storage) is rad too.
- standeven 2y agoAnd flywheels! That’s what my startup is working on.
- calebm 2y agoCame here to ask: why store energy in chemical batteries rather than gravity batteries (like pumping water up a mountain)? I know this is done (like here: https://www.tva.com/energy/our-power-system/hydroelectric/raccoon-mountain https://www.tva.com/energy/our-power-system/hydroelectric/ra...)
- NegativeK 2y agoWater and increased physical space aren't universally available, which can raise cost.
- pfdietz 2y agoPHES consumes surprisingly little water, even in a desert. It's an order of magnitude less than evaporated by a thermal power plant of the same energy throughput.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoBatteries are generally better for short term storage, aka daily usage. Pumped hydro is generally better for long term storage. We need both, but we can generally efficiently get to 70-90% carbon-free electricity without long term storage so we haven't need much long term storage yet.
- pfdietz 2y ago> Pumped hydro is generally better for long term storage Up to a point. Very long term storage is another thing again. This twitter/X post has a very nice animated graphic of the predicted evolution of storage technologies over time (from 2020 to 2030), plotted against two attributes: duration of discharge, and # of cycles per year. https://twitter.com/iain_staffell/status/1722544993179504965 https://twitter.com/iain_staffell/status/1722544993179504965 Li-ion batteries and hydrogen are expanding the areas where they would dominate; pumped hydro is shrinking. Compressed air is getting squeezed out (no pun intended).
- foota 2y agoThe tiny spike in battery at 12am is interesting. DC power for things running at midnight?
- FriedPickles 2y agoMy time-of-use rate plan for PG&E (EV2-A) drops to its cheapest price at 12am–I'm guessing that's the cause of the spike. I start my car charging at 12:05am. I wish they offered an even more dynamic rate plan.
- ziga 2y agoDynamic tariffs (aka real-time or wholesale plans) are becoming more common in the UK an EU. These are usually priced by 30-min periods and announced 24h in advance. More modern utilities will offer apps that control when your car is charged (in exchange for cheaper rates). But I agree, optimizing this is fun too. I'm building support for configuring Tesla Powerwall systems based on dynamic tariffs. If you have the option, the best time to charge your car would be during the day when there is abundant solar.
- foota 2y agoI'm not sure this is true. In the long run, it makes sense to consume power when renewables can supply it, instead of having to store it in a battery and use it later. In the short term however, renewables can't scale up in demand, so you're actually likely to require that the load is served from dispatchable power, which is probably either gas, hydro, or battery. I don't think there's really any good time to charge it then. If solar was ever underutilized, I would assume there would be no gas in the mix at that point in time, but there is no such time.
- Symbiote 2y agoRemember the comment was from someone in Europe, where air conditioning is much less common. You can see some hourly prices in Denmark here: https://andelenergi.dk/el/timepris/ https://andelenergi.dk/el/timepris/ — it's often cheaper in the middle of the day. You can see the production mix here, and the gas is reduced to near-zero when the sun shines: https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DK-DK1 https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DK-DK1
- dukeofdoom 2y agoYeah making it way more expensive and causing inflation. Yesterday my local grocery had a $29 bag of coffee on clearance... regular $39. If this continues it will transform politics as well.
- riffic 2y agothe covid-era money printing is one of the biggest causes of today's inflation (but granted there are a few more). This is like high-school level econ here.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 2y agoWhenever I see “high-school level Econ” being cited, I wonder if Econ is even taught in most American high schools, it certainly wasn’t in mine.
- not2b 2y agoThe phrase should be read as "oversimplified Econ". If it were just about the money supply, increasing interest rates, which reduces money supply by suppressing loans, as well as the end to the money handouts during the shutdown, would have been enough to take care of it. But there's also market concentration which has allowed big players to raise prices a lot more than their costs have been raised, increasing their profits.
- riffic 2y agofrom the following link (Council for Economic Education), there are 28 states requiring students to take a course in economics to graduate. https://www.councilforeconed.org/policy-advocacy/survey-of-the-states/ https://www.councilforeconed.org/policy-advocacy/survey-of-t... https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizfrazierpeck/2024/04/01/2024-cee-survey-of-the-states-show-progress-for-financial-education/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizfrazierpeck/2024/04/01/2024-...
- snarf21 2y agoAgreed, it was a choice between a depression or inflation so we printed. It is also driven by industry consolidation leading to price gouging as there is no longer effective market competition.
- standeven 2y agoThe age of solar + storage is here. It’s the least expensive option to add power to the grid today, and prices are still dropping while efficiencies are increasing.
- eagerpace 2y agoThis. And battery chemistries are advancing rapidly to utilize more readily available minerals. For cars, yes, you need advanced stuff that is small and powerful. But for home and grid use, batteries can afford to be big and heavy.
- chrisBob 2y agoBig heavy batteries for my home would be fine. I want big heavy batteries for my house, but they are still so expensive right now. The Anker batteries seems like one of the best deals around to do a home battery system right now, but I get about 2kWh/$. When I bought my IONIQ6 I got about 2kWh/$, and it came with the rest of a car! I really don't understand the economics of home batteries right now.
- yardie 2y ago1. Economies of scale. The market for an EV is going to be much higher than a whole house battery solution. And most of these solutions are relying on a network of independent contractors to sell and service these batteries. Unlike dealerships, they also aren't buying them at scale. 2. Financing. Most likely you are driving a EV financed by a bank. They've got the process so streamlined you can know within minutes if your 4-wheeled battery bank is coming home with you or not. Trying to get a house battery financed is such a convoluted mess. If it was advertised like a dealership, "Come down to Big Al's Battery Barn. We'll set you up with a 10kWh bank with 0% financing!", I imagine these things would fly off the shelf. Leading back to 1.
- yuliyp 2y agoSomething is very wrong about that 2 kWh / $ price: that seems closer to the cost of electricity rather than the cost of battery capacity.
- joshuamcginnis 2y agoThere is a company[0] here in rural Virginia buying up huge swaths of land (100-500+ acres) and filling them up with solar panels. From an energy perspective, it's wonderful. On the other hand, it is quite literally changing the views of our precious Blue Ridge Mountains from hills and mountains with seas of green pasture to rows of solar panels as far as the eye can see. 0. https://energix-group.com/ https://energix-group.com/
- schiffern 2y agoI had a friend who actually moved when a 100+ acre solar farm was built just upstream, and maintained by heavy regular spraying of herbicides. Solar is great, but IMO we should be somehow encouraging rooftop solar (which, yes, is more expensive!) in order to reduce pressure on wilderness and agriculture. Before someone jumps in with the efficient market hypothesis, fundamentally the problem is that wilderness services aren't easily priced correctly, but solar has suddenly made chopping down wilderness (more) easily monetizable.
- baron816 2y agoAgriculture and, more importantly, grazing land can be frequently integrated with solar and wind. That wilderness isn’t going to be there anyway if we don’t address climate change as fast as we can.
- schiffern 2y agoThe problem is that agriculture is limited in hilly uplands (which are ecologically the most important places to avoid deforesting) because you don't want a tractor to tip over. However those places can now be cleared for solar. >That wilderness isn’t going to be there anyway if we don’t address climate change as fast as we can. By the same token, fixing climate change won't matter if we don't have any wilderness services left. Either crisis will be catastrophic, and we need to fix both. I sometimes worry that we focus too much on just GHG climate change, to the exclusion of other issues like biodiversity, water, soil, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVFSJINGueM&t=892 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVFSJINGueM&t=892
- jebarker 2y agoI am about to get battery backup and solar installed in an already electrified house. Seems like the best thing I can currently do to reduce my carbon footprint. However, I can't help wonder if I should be worried about the finite resources used to create the batteries and the impact of the waste created when the batteries reach their end of life. Is this a sustainable model for energy storage?
- sottol 2y agoSodium batteries are on the verge of commercialization, they're better in almost every way but energy density, making them ideal for energy storage imo. My hope is that this and other steps like this will make battery storage sustainable.
- jwitchel 2y agoYou are not alone. There are a lot of startups working to solve this problem: https://ttconsultants.com/top-10-battery-recycling-startups-empowering-a-greener-future-in-2023/ https://ttconsultants.com/top-10-battery-recycling-startups-... However, you're doing the right thing. It's important to not let the great become the enemy of the good. Yes, there is work to be done to make batteries zero impact. But no matter what's happening in the world of batteries it is nothing compared to the extraordinary destructive force of coal, oil, and gas globally. https://acespace.org/blog/2024/01/12/top-10-oil-and-gas-industry-disasters/ https://acespace.org/blog/2024/01/12/top-10-oil-and-gas-indu... https://www.miningreview.com/coal/the-top-10-coal-mines-of-the-world/ https://www.miningreview.com/coal/the-top-10-coal-mines-of-t...
- megaman821 2y agoThe rare metals in your battery will be recovered at a rate of 95% and used in a new battery that will probably store more energy with the same amount of metals. Batteries seem pretty sustainable.
- pfdietz 2y agoWhat rare metals are in LFP batteries? Lithium? We have a lithium glut. It should be noted that if an electric vehicle has 70 KWh of batteries in it, then electrifying the 283 million motor vehicles in the US would need 20 TWh of batteries. This is considerably more than would be needed to convert the US grid to 100% renewables (assuming proper use of non-battery storage technologies as well for longer term storage). The implication here is that if BEVs win, then a renewable grid is not a big additional step.
- corradio 2y agoI am really impressed at how California has scaled up its use of batteries. I remember 5-6 years ago coding on Electricity Maps and seeing almost no storage (link: https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-CAL-CISO https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-CAL-CISO)
- throwup238 2y agoFinancially it's kind of a no brainer at this point. Myself and a bunch of family members are customers of SDGE and the lowest price anyone is paying is now $0.50/kWh and the highest is $0.91/kWh. The household paying the latter just installed 15kW of solar panels and a battery bank to cut their costs to the $16/mo hookup fee and it's not even the height of summer yet. It's almost to the point where their backup propane generator is cheaper to run than pay for utility power! The solar/battery installation will pay for itself in under five years assuming no price increases (hah!). Everyone is building it at every level of the producer/consumer curve.
- gknoy 2y agoMaybe it's that I'm not in as sunny an area, but all of the (battery + panels) numbers I've seen tell me I'll see a break-even in 15 years, vs in ~5 if I just have panels.
- throwup238 2y agoThey did the installation themselves so the only labor they paid for was roofers to reshingle the roof first. I think that significantly changes the calculus.
- matmatmatmat 2y agoYes, labor is the killer cost of these installations, IME. Labor can easily be 50% or more of the total cost.
- albrewer 2y agoThere was a US tax program last year that cut 30% of costs off of renewable energy projects. I took advantage of it - it brought the project from "will never pay for itself" to "pays for itself in ~3-5 years" due to the way the financing worked out with the tax credit.
- liampulles 2y agoPrivate home and business solar is big business in South Africa these days. As unreliable as solar is, its more predictable than our national grid, and increasingly cheap. There are also a few options to roll a house solar conversion into your mortgage, which makes it a lot more feasible for middle class people and up. I'm considering adding solar to my existing inverter/battery setup.
- freedomben 2y agoWhat impact is this having on the lower class? Is grid power getting cheaper or more plentiful because of this? Or is it getting more expensive for them due to economies of scale? I'm by no means implying that you're do anything wrong btw, I'm genuinely curious how this is affecting things. In the US I've wondered what the impact would be but it's too early to tell.
- Carlseymanh 2y agoI only heard this from a south African, so consider this hearsay, but prices of energy from private providers is not only cheaper, but the energy is actually available and not subjected to constant blackouts. Problem is, the governments since Mandela have used the state energy provider as a cash cow and are actively hampering any kind of modernization and/or private alternatives. Case in point: https://www.climatechangenews.com/2023/01/11/eskom-poisoning-raises-fears-for-south-africas-energy-transition/ https://www.climatechangenews.com/2023/01/11/eskom-poisoning...
- liampulles 2y agoAbsolutely, the government has been pushed for a few years now to allow for public enterprise to contribute to the grid. Our president recently announced that they are going to go ahead with this. I hope this is true.
- liampulles 2y agoNo it is a good question. Does private solar aid the lower class? Well "lower class" in South Africa means real poverty. So they certainly can't get solar themselves. As to whether higher income households going off-grid helps - its tricky I think. On the one hand, private solar does lessen the burden on the grid. We currently have had a good few weeks without load shedding, one major contributing factor of which (acknowledged by Eskom themselves) has been a combination of good weather and off-grid solar households. But on the other hand, Eskom is increasingly deprived of the rates to pay for the large capital investments needed to upgrade the grid. Eskom has continually hiked those rates (which means more people are incentivized to go solar - it is a vicious cycle perhaps). Our government is finally moving forward with a policy of allowing private enterprise to contribute to the grid. I think this will definitely help. But realistically, I think South Africa will have to deal with load shedding for a good few years.
- eximius 2y agoDoes anyone know how to find good solar contractors? Every time I seem to search for professionals I find a bunch of blogs about superficial details about solar installations instead of someone to actually install a system.
- oppositelock 2y agoAsk your neighbors with solar who they used and if hey liked working with them, and also get a lot of estimates from lots of local contractors. You will see all kinds of system proposals when you do this. Go with the contractor that you like dealing with who has a good system proposal. A good sign for me was when someone was willing to make changes; eg, use micro inverters vs optimizers for my complex roof geometry. You can't figure out who's good online, interview the local companies. Locals will also get you through the permitting and code compliance process too.
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- mdaniel 2y agoAlso, don't overlook the "services" category of CL (e.g. https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/bbb?query=solar%20install%2A); https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/bbb?query=solar%20instal... it still carries the same "call a rando" risk as does hiring any contractor, but it can be easier than filtering out the higher budget Yelp businesses. Sometimes they list in the for-sale category, too as CL is wont to do
- aiauthoritydev 2y agoDoes anyone know what happens to the car batteries once they are old ? Is it more economical to recycle them or sell them for home energy storage ?
- oppositelock 2y agoThere are companies attempting to recycle them into new batteries, such as Redwood Materials, but from what I know, recycled lithium is more expensive than fresh lithium today. The problem with used EV batteries is that they've started to degrade, and they degrade in chaotic ways, so you can't offer a predictable product made from old cells. Some cells may have shorts internally, others may have evaporated some electrolyte, or the electrodes may have degraded. Right now, lithium recovery is quite primitive from used cells. I've tried to reuse used batteries myself for storage, and the unpredictable wear made me give up. Also, EV batteries, which are optimized for power density, may not be the best choice for home storage, where you want the ability to deep cycle to buffer power usage as the NYT article describes. The NMC cells common in EV's don't like to sit at above 90% state of charge (this cutoff is arbitrary, but > 90% results in fast breakdown), and they don't like to go below 20%, so you have a useful range of 70% of the capacity. You can over-provision by 30% or you can use lithium-iron-phosphate cells, which are less power dense, but much more tolerant of deep cycling. I set my home up like this a long time ago. I use 100% of my solar and export nothing to the CA grid due to batteries. It's not cost effective to do this given the cost of storage when I set this up, but it's really neat to someone of my nerdy predisposition. My goals originally were to have solar based backup power, because I lose power quite a lot despite living in silicon valley, and it's worked great for that too.
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoA slightly nerdier take on this from gridstatus.io was submitted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40285584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40285584
- pyrale 2y agoThis is a very significant change! I'd be interested in seeing an estimate of the battery costs to the grid, and also next winter's data. but if battery costs and material requirements are reasonable, and this deployment is not the result of an overinvestment in renewables, this is probably the first significant example of renewables getting a reasonable deployment plan.
- syngrog66 2y agoThere is an "American" on-site battery backup startup (for residences & biz) which AFAIK plans to use Chinese hardware and Russian software. If I have to explain the natsec implications and dangers of that... Let's just say its "unwise" at best, and suspicious at worst. They pitched me and tried to recruit me. I turned them down, in part for that and for other anti-patterns they demonstrated.
- wojciem 2y agoInterestingly, from the provided charts the energy consumption decreased between 2024 and 2021.
- emsy 2y agoI wonder how much return to work (as opposed to working from home) contributes to this.
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- oliwarner 2y agoIn the UK we have at least one company buying and selling electricity in 30 minute window rates. These windows are published 8 hours ahead based on predicted generation. With a battery and minimal software, you can buy low, sell high, keep enough for yourself, factor in EV charging, solar generation, etc etc. Battery pays for itself in 5 years, and with enough takers, the grid gets superb smoothing, delaying the need for central infra upgrades.
- oliwarner 2y agoBy which I meant to say: this is what we should be incentivising. Government could lend, get the upfront price down to 10% of what it is now, and share the return to get their investment plus interest back within 15y. Homeowner still benefits from reduced bills, and the grid gains massive distribution diversification. Win win.
- johnea 2y agoSo, is this really an engineering community? "battery storage capacity on the nation’s grids has grown tenfold, to 16,000 megawatts" "California now has 10,000 megawatts of battery capacity on the grid" After reading all of the comments below, i only find tangential reference to the fact that MW (or any kind of Watts) is not a measure of capacity. Even the tangential comment, that MWh is not MKS, doesn't highlight that the article never mentions MWh, everything is described in terms of MW, which is obviously power, not energy. It seems even the referenced state reports make the same error: https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/california-electricity-data/california-energy-storage-system-survey https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo... And the governor's office: https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/04/25/california-achieves-major-clean-energy-victory-10000-megawatts-of-battery-storage/ https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/04/25/california-achieves-major-... As an actual lefty (not a woke-nut (or a wing-nut)) I'm not a fan of Gov Gavin. But the article wasn't really political, whereas the overwhelming majority of comments here are. It doesn't shine a favorable light on the HN community in terms of being technically focused...
- sharpshadow 2y ago“Most batteries still come from China” and that’s a big issue in regard with the ongoing trade war and future war. At least for lithium. That’s why it’s a strategic plus to go for electric vehicles build upon lithium to have a certain amount available locally for the recycling process.
- jarbus 2y agoAre these sodium ion batteries or regular lithium ion? I’m excited to see how these numbers change once sodium ion becomes mainstream