[HN Gopher] California grid set record of 97% renewable power on...
___________________________________________________________________
California grid set record of 97% renewable power on April 3
Author : lizparody23
Score : 160 points
Date : 2022-04-20 21:30 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.solarpowerworldonline.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.solarpowerworldonline.com)
| aatharuv wrote:
| What I wonder is the breakdown of sources.
|
| Solar? Hydro electric? (I wonder if roof top solar is included
| here).
|
| Also, note this was over a very short period of time. And there's
| still night time, when solar doesn't operate, except for whatever
| got stored into batteries.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Consumed roof top solar would not be included (but the portion
| put into the grid would) - which makes this number even more
| impressive
| no-dr-onboard wrote:
| Disclaimer: this comment is not about environmentalism or even
| the environmental impact. I'm not wading in those waters with HN.
|
| It's difficult to see this as a net positive given the financial
| hardship brought about to even make this headline a reality (note
| that even the headline is misleading and requires context).
|
| It's a bit like the person who goes out and purchases a vehicle,
| spends countless hours away from his family working on it, takes
| out additional loans to modify it, crashes it, repairs it and
| then wins 2nd place at the local meetup. You have to ask
| yourself, at what point was this worth it?
| jhgb wrote:
| What financial hardship? Pretty much all the other pathways are
| even more expensive, either in externalities or in internalized
| costs. There really are not that many realistic options that
| remain open (at least in the US).
| gibolt wrote:
| Yes, it is. Solar pays for itself in raw kWh over ~8 years,
| probably even better at utility scale which negotiates huge
| panel purchases. Batteries cost more, but can apply stored
| power when they can earn the most (during peak), reducing
| viability of polluting alternatives.
|
| The cherry on top is that all future energy uses no more
| material and creates no more pollution, with materials mostly
| all recyclable at end of life. Over a 30 year horizon, fossil
| fuel infra cannot compete.
| Cyclical wrote:
| I'm having trouble understanding how you can separate the
| cost/benefit analysis of renewable energy from
| environmentalism. The entire point is that the reasons for
| hitting these goals are not purely economic (in the short term
| - long term, running out of fossil fuels in a fossil fuel
| economy does not tend to be good for the economy.) The
| sentiment that aiming for full renewable supply is too
| expensive to be worth it feels like it misses the mark on why
| we're doing it.
| lauv0x wrote:
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| > More than 15,000 MW of grid-connected solar power capacity and
| almost 8,000 MW of wind are now online.
|
| > The system currently has more than 2,700 MW of storage, most of
| it in lithium-ion batteries, and that number is projected to grow
| to about 4,000 MW by June 1.
|
| Storage should be in MWh I assume? Anyways, those batteries can
| hold 11 minutes of peak solar power production.
|
| But by June 1st, battery capacity is set to go up by 50% while
| new solar production will only go up about by 5%.
| renewiltord wrote:
| It's battery storage as a power source so it's about its
| delivery capacity. 2.7 GW of storage means when the time comes
| it can deliver at 2.7 GW.
| tedsanders wrote:
| No, it's common to measure storage with MW when you're talking
| about dispatchable power.
|
| For example, a 10 MW battery can replace a 10 MW gas generator
| (assuming it has enough capacity to cover the relevant peak,
| which is usually a fair assumption because that's what they're
| designed for). If you only know a battery has 20 MWh, that's
| not enough information to know what equivalent amount of
| generation or ramp it can replace.
| polote wrote:
| > In another sign of progress toward a carbon-free power grid.
|
| This is clearly not the case, this is a sign of progress of
| carbon free production capacity but not the grid. It doesn't mean
| we should not be happy about it. But we need to stop mixing
| everything
| pmalynin wrote:
| Then why is it so damn expensive. Honestly one of the reasons I
| can't wait to own a house is to purchase enough solar panels and
| batteries to give a huge middle finger to PG&E and go off-grid
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| As a Californian I think the electricity itself is pretty cheap
| at ~9cents/kwh but the total delivery costs are 3x that.
| [deleted]
| ejb999 wrote:
| Every time I do the math, any money I would spend on a solar
| system, would be better invested in an energy utility and just
| collect the dividend to pay my electric bill.
|
| If you want to do solar for the environment, fine - I won't
| fault you - but if you are doing it to save/make money, there
| are better places to invest.
| ceeplusplus wrote:
| It's honestly insane how PG&E is going bankrupt despite
| charging 35 cents/kWh. Where is all the money going??
| not2b wrote:
| Paying damages from all the wildfires they have caused.
| Trias11 wrote:
| bryan0 wrote:
| one place:
|
| > PG&E Corp. put a cost estimate of more than $25 billion
| Thursday on its effort to plant thousands of miles of power
| lines underground in an effort to tamp down wildfire risks.
|
| https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article25824965.
| ..
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Shame that they're not getting better publicity as a result
| of this. Our main complaint about the internet companies is
| that they pocket the money meant to speed up networks for
| their subscribers. This is exactly what utility companies
| ought to do to prepare for the future.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| They're doing it because they went bankrupt over $30B in
| liability from not preparing in this fashion.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/business/energy-
| environme...
|
| > PG&E sought bankruptcy protection in January 2019 after
| accumulating an estimated $30 billion in liability for
| fires started by its poorly maintained equipment. One of
| the blazes, the 2018 Camp Fire, killed scores of people
| and destroyed the town of Paradise.
|
| It wasn't voluntary, really.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| A large part of why they're doing it because they're
| guaranteed a certain percentage return on investments.
| There's ways to fix this problem without a $25bil
| investment, but you won't make nearly as much profit on
| that.
| haliskerbas wrote:
| I've been trying to do the math for my own home, are solar
| panels actually cash flow positive, once you account for
| efficiency decrease overtime etc.? It always seemed like one
| barely breaks even in 2 decades
| swid wrote:
| Sounds about right for the power only, but you also probably
| get a battery with it to deal with power outages... I don't
| know how to price the utility of that, but it's why I bought
| solar.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| How long have you been able to stretch that battery out
| when your power is out? Don't have a point to make or
| anything, I'm just curious. I hadn't really considered
| that.
| RosanaAnaDana wrote:
| 35k for a 8kwh, 24kwh battery storage system. ~15k in
| credits?
|
| Solar loan ends up at 175 a month. I got in before the
| recent ridiculousness around fuel prices. I'm sure I'm net
| positive at this point but haven't done the precise math.
|
| One addition I'm considering, is some bitcoin/ crypto rigs
| to take care of excess power during the peaks. Even with my
| batteries, I produce a lot of extra power and don't get
| paid spit from the power company, and what I do get I can
| only use as credit.
|
| https://www.nicehash.com/profitability-
| calculator/-bitmain-a...
|
| Thing costs ~1.25k, but at ~$10/ day it will pay its self
| off in a quarter.
| malchow wrote:
| Solar in California is often breakeven after 4 to 7 years.
| Enphase enables microgrid systems, and the IQ8 can keep your
| house powered even when the grid is down, and even without
| batteries -- something never before possible.
|
| https://enphase.com/sites/default/files/2021-10/IQ8SP-
| DS-000...
|
| Worth nothing that PG&E is working with CA Democrats to try
| to kill rooftop solar. They want renewables, but only if
| distributed using their (badly operated and overpriced) grid.
| [1]
|
| [1] https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2022/02/11/coalition-
| received-1-...
| bombcar wrote:
| It can be cash flow positive if you do a bunch of the work
| yourself and plan accordingly.
|
| https://www.sevarg.net/tag/solar/
|
| From my point of view the nice thing about it is reducing or
| eliminating recurring expenses.
|
| Once your recurring expenses drop below passive income you
| are pretty well set.
| danans wrote:
| It depends on a whole lot of factors. In a sunny place like
| CA with good solar incentive programs, assuming good southern
| to southwestern exposure, they are cash positive after about
| 6 years [1]. In Wisconsin, 11 years [2]. In Washington State,
| 15 years [3]
|
| 1. https://www.energysage.com/solar-
| panels/ca/#:~:text=For%20Ca....
|
| 2. https://www.energysage.com/solar-
| panels/wi/#:~:text=In%20Wis....
|
| 3. https://www.energysage.com/solar-
| panels/wa/#:~:text=In%20Was....
| sib wrote:
| Yeah, so far, with the rooftop system we put in about 1.5
| years ago (Los Angeles), we are tracking to ~5.5 year
| payback period, so this feels right.
| gxt wrote:
| Even if only just break even after 20years, it is an
| acceptable cost for freedom of mind and autonomy.
| jweir wrote:
| You do not pay market rate for electricity.
|
| Texas does allow consumers to pay market rate for electricity,
| you may have heard about last winter people getting bills in
| the several thousands of dollars when prices spiked.
|
| CAISO was 97% renewable for only a moment, not the entire day.
|
| The 3rd was a Sunday, not a peak day.
|
| And the average price for energy for the day was $30.77 (day
| head) $27.1 (real time) for TH_SP15_GEN-APND (per MWh)
| samkater wrote:
| My understanding, to put it in AWS EC2 pricing terms, is that
| we do not pay the market "spot" rate for electricity
| (variable, often less than what you might pay elsewhere, but
| could spike up) - which is what Texas allowed. Typically we
| pay the "on demand" rate which is fixed. Large energy users
| probably negotiate "reserved" pricing.
|
| My point being, we pay the market rate, those massive hikes
| are just built-in over a long period of time.
| ajross wrote:
| That only works if the demand curve (the price the market
| will bear at given levels of shortage) and the cost curve
| (the actual price to produce the energy) match up.
|
| In fact they never do, especially in this market. Texas
| producers weren't spending 100x (or whatever) more to
| produce that electricity, that spike just reflected the
| amount that customers who "had to keep the lights on" were
| willing to bear. In fact total utility costs are basically
| flat. They didn't hire 100x more employees or work 100x
| more hours to get things running again. They didn't have to
| build 100x more substations, etc...
|
| And that's why spot pricing is a disaster for consumers. It
| creates a perverse incentive for producers to _reduce_
| supply.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| The economic reason people should be paying 100x the cost
| to supply is to incentivize people to build spare
| capacity.
| notch656a wrote:
| Generally agree although there is something a bit
| sinister about a market where you don't really know the
| price until after you've bought the product. IMO giving a
| utility provider blank check is like raw-dogging cheap
| hookers every night and then being surprised when your
| luck runs out.
|
| If people WANT this kind of contract I hope that their
| consent is an informed one. I'm not one to stop people
| from engaging in their own reckless behavior.
| notch656a wrote:
| When you have an outage, it's possible the instantaneous
| cost of electricity is in fact 10x/100x/infinitely more
| than baseline cost. Looking at it as 100x more employees
| is the wrong direction. If you're producing 1/100th the
| electricity for 5 minutes due to power outtages but you
| still have to pay all your employees during that time,
| your instantaneous cost (per unit energy) actually are
| proportionally higher.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| There are currently no residential consumers in Texas on
| spot rate plans since the only provider had their license
| revoked. https://www.cbsnews.com/dfw/news/ercot-shuts-
| down-wholesale-...
| [deleted]
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| You should keep in mind that only one provider allowed end
| users to pay spot rate and ERCOT revoked their license to
| operate after the freeze where power rates went to $4000/MWh.
| The average Texan (excluding people in East Texas who are on
| the Eastern power grid, and people in Austin) buy their
| energy on a 12 month contract from an intermediary who THEN
| negotiates a flat rate or gambles on beating the sold
| contracts on spot.
| outside1234 wrote:
| In addition to what others have said -- renewable does not mean
| necessarily cheap.
| kelnos wrote:
| The grid operator cited is the California Independent System
| Operator. How much of CA's electricity consumption is fed by that
| operator?
|
| In the article they mention 23GW from wind and solar. A quick
| search says in 2018 CA's electrical generation capacity was 80GW
| (which I assume has only gone up). So this 97% is a bit
| misleading, no? It doesn't represent 97% of total CA electricity
| usage... it's less than 30%?
| mschaef wrote:
| > A quick search says in 2018 CA's electrical generation
| capacity was 80GW (which I assume has only gone up). So this
| 97% is a bit misleading, no? It doesn't represent 97% of total
| CA electricity usage... it's less than 30%?
|
| Their full installed generation capacity is 80GW, but there's
| huge variability in actual load. As I write this, current load
| is around 21GW, on a range of between 18.7GW and 27GW over the
| day. It gets into the 40's in the summer.
|
| https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/default.aspx
|
| There's a significant need for reserve capacity to deal with
| this load variability, as well as plant failures, etc.
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > Rooftop solar advocacy group Save California Solar said
| although this milestone should be celebrated, California's
| renewable energy progress is better measured by conditions on a
| hot August summer day than a cool April spring day. Renewable
| peaks typically occur in the spring, due to mild temperatures
| and the sun angle allowing for an extended window of strong
| solar production.
| jweir wrote:
| Capacity is the ability to produce energy and with renewables
| that number is very different than with fossil fuels or nukes.
|
| Renewables never reach capacity, well your solar might for a
| peak moment, but then it will drop as the sun drops.
|
| For example - you have a 200 MW wind farm, you might only be
| able to produce 10MW at that moment. The capacity is 200MW, the
| generation is 10.
|
| Also the 3rd was a Sunday in spring - no office workers, less
| demand, not a heating or cooling day in a lot of California, ie
| a lower energy day than say a week day in summer where the temp
| is 105 in the Central Valley.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| April 3rd was a sunday, and probably a very sunny one, with
| temperatures in ranges where a lot of people don't really need
| AC nor electrical heating.
|
| What do you do when it's not sunny, very cold/hot, no wind, and
| businesses and factories are open?
|
| Somehow we talk a lot about solar, and not enough about
| nuclear.
| labster wrote:
| We talk about nuclear more than we talk about solar on HN.
| Probably because it's controversial we get more atomic
| writes, while solar is presumed to exist.
| cinntaile wrote:
| It's the title of the article after all. We could talk about
| Intel as well, but it's not relevant.
| strainer wrote:
| You need forms of storage for that. The conundrum can be
| turned on its head - "What do you do when you have nuclear
| and the businesses and factories are closed ?" You either
| simply waste nuclear capacity that you've paid and waited
| years for to be built - or you need forms of storage to make
| use of it. Both Nuclear and Renewables really want storage,
| they will compete for it. If you can only make use of 60% of
| a nuclear plants capacity, you're price per unit is 100/60
| more than the 'base-load' ideal that it was sold for. And
| another thing future nuclear plants will have to run
| alongside - is more and more renewable supply since
| renewables are cheaper and faster to build. We will have a
| situation where almost all demand is met by renewable supply
| eventually, and before that situation the demand left nuclear
| will decrease from 70,60,50,40,30...% - that's even without
| storage. How many decades do you expect it will take before
| those plants built with contracts to run for half a century
| or more, become pointlessly uneconomic ?
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| If there's too much power, it will be dirt cheap, and
| you'll charge your electric car then, which will maybe
| become affordable by then. Also with smart grid you'll
| regulate water heaters, ACs etc.
|
| Still better to have too much power than not enough...
| Especially if eg. Russia decides to close the gas pipe, or
| if americans decide to "bring democracy" to another middle
| eastern state and that disrupta oil delivery.
|
| We've sidetracked nuclear for decades now... The best time
| was decades ago, and the second vest time to build some new
| ones is now.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| Mvandenbergh wrote:
| That is all the capacity added together before de-rating.
| Capacity is de-rated based on how likely it is to produce
| during a system load peak. So a nuclear plant might be counted
| as 75% of nameplate to account for outage risk. Renewables are
| de-rated a lot and by how much changes over time as they make
| up a larger share of the connected capacity.
|
| California de-rates solar by less than, say, the UK since Cali
| has a lot of air conditioning load which is coincident with
| insolation whereas summer days are the low-load periods in the
| UK.
|
| The capacity before de-rating > capacity after de-rating >
| highest anticipated load > actual load on a normal day.
| IvyMike wrote:
| "The CAISO is one of the largest ISOs in the world, delivering
| 300 million megawatt-hours of electricity each year and
| managing about 80% of California's electric flow."
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Independent_System_...
|
| Right now, 3PM in California, the CAISO demand shows around
| 21GW of demand.
| http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/index.html
|
| Note that CAISO's peak, ever, was 50GW. (PDF)
| http://www.caiso.com/Documents/CaliforniaISOPeakLoadHistory....
|
| The "installed capacity" of 80GW I believe is the number if you
| add the theoretical max of all hydro, solar, wind, gas peaker
| plants, etc. But each source will never simultaneously be at
| max, so we never get close to this 80GW number.
| https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-
| almanac/califo....
| kmonsen wrote:
| That's assuming everything else is 0.
| vmception wrote:
| > "If California is to have any hope of getting to 100%
| renewable energy on an August day in the future ... it will
| take 100 GW more energy produced by solar. Halting the progress
| of rooftop solar makes that goal impossible"
|
| I'm also confused by the scales here. How are they praising the
| use of 15,000 MW (15GW) and 8,000 MW (8 GW) in one sentence, in
| an article about 97% of California's energy being used, and
| saying they need 100 GW in the next sentence and being sad they
| can't put it on rooftops. In an article showing a photo of a
| solar cell field in a vast, desolate, arid region of central
| valley.
| imachine1980_ wrote:
| not all california energy is produce in california california
| fo example pays to nevada if don't remember wrong to, shut
| down their panels to make their output higher than it is for
| example, or like this articule say pay other state to buy
| their electric excess output meaning the technically could be
| true
|
| article: California invested heavily in solar power. Now
| there's so much that other states are sometimes paid to take
| it https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-solar/
| Retric wrote:
| In California August requires a lot more electricity due to
| AC than April. Seasonal demand differences can be huge, and
| why a lot of maintenance for nuclear reactors etc take place
| in the spring and fall.
| vmception wrote:
| I'm catching on. Is there not enough space in central
| valley for this? is there too much loss transporting that
| electricity to population centers?
| Retric wrote:
| In theory moving electricity 1,000 miles can have minimal
| transmission losses. Unfortunately California's grid
| lacks the infrastructure to support significant long
| distance transmission.
| incomethax wrote:
| Sort-of. Transmission for HTHV lines (745kV single
| circuit cost $2.5-4M/mile with ~1% line loss; 345kV
| single circuit will cost ~$1.5-2M/mile with 5% line
| loss). For 1MW solar capacity you typically need about 4
| acres. 100GW of solar would require 400k acres of land -
| and come at a cost of about $3 billion for the panels,
| not to mention the price of land or entitlements. Add in
| cost of substations and transmission you're realistically
| looking at a $10+ Billion project. Which while doable
| would not profitability compete with other grid
| solutions. If panels drop by another 30% and power
| densities improve the grid will naturally tend towards
| that direction.
| danans wrote:
| > How much of CA's electricity consumption is fed by that
| operator?
|
| 80% of California and part of Nevada also. Don't confuse the
| grid operator with the utility. Those are separate entities.
|
| The ISO is the market maker for electricity - ultimately
| responsible for keeping supply and demand on the grid in
| balance. They contract with numerous entities to achieve that.
|
| The utility is responsible for some combination of generation,
| transmission, distribution, and billing, depending on where you
| are located.
|
| There are many other players in the markets, including spinning
| reserves, independent generators, demand aggregators,
| community-choice-aggregators, and some that play multiple
| roles.
| selectodude wrote:
| CAISO doesn't cover the city of Los Angeles, but that's about
| it.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| > but that's about it
|
| isn't that the major consumer?
| selectodude wrote:
| Covers the Bay Area and the entirety of Southern California
| except for the city limits of Los Angeles. So all but about
| 4 million people.
| joebob42 wrote:
| My interpretation is that this was a low demand moment where
| that 27gw was more or less equal to the demand (e.g. a demand
| trough not a renewable output spike).
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| So the title should be - CA generated 97% of electricity from
| renewable energy for a brief moment on April 3?
| CrimsonCape wrote:
| No, because joebob's interpretation is wrong.
| simpsond wrote:
| Yes, the article says that in the first paragraph.
|
| Also, solar generation is highest during march/April.
| Cooler temps and good angles. Demand is lower too, as temps
| are good for people.
| tomohawk wrote:
| What a meaningless stat. What is the minimum capacity that
| renewables are guaranteed to provide? That's the number that
| matters.
| mschaef wrote:
| > What is the minimum capacity that renewables are guaranteed
| to provide?
|
| Zero... same as any other technology. ie: Texas lost around
| 25GW of needed NatGas capacity in Feb 2021, not to mention the
| failed coal, wind, and nuclear that also occurred during that
| event. (Texas had similar shortages in 2011 and 1989.)
|
| > That's the number that matters.
|
| You need to take a portfolio view when thinking about energy
| supply issues... reality is both your number and their number
| matter.
|
| What 97% does mean, is less consumption of two finite
| resources, namely the ability of the atmosphere to absorb
| carbon and the amount of carbon we have available to us to
| burn.
|
| Of course, it also means there's a need to either scale the
| rest of the generation in the ISO down to 3% or export the
| excess to a neighboring market. Larger base load plants,
| particularly nuclear, are very bad at lowering their output
| (Which is why sometimes wholesale electricity prices are
| negative. These are generators willing to pay people to take
| their power so they don't have to shut down or otherwise reduce
| output.)
| outside1234 wrote:
| And this doesn't measure the 100% renewable power being consumed
| when the house is being powered by a solar panel...
|
| ... in any case, great progress, let's get to 100% California!
| Aachen wrote:
| What percentage of industries and cars are electric currently?
| Is 100% also continuous during winter? There's a long way to go
| after "100%" unfortunately :/
| Arubis wrote:
| Article doesn't get into this level of detail, but I'd be
| interested in how they define "renewable". Does it include
| hydropower, which is renewable but has strong non-carbon-related
| undesirable environmental consequences? Is burned trash
| "renewable"?
| CaliforniaKarl wrote:
| Cal ISO's web site is at
| https://www.caiso.com/Pages/default.aspx
|
| On there you can dig in and find what sources are counted as
| renewable.
| Arubis wrote:
| That's clarifying; thanks!
| jhgb wrote:
| Hydropower actually has strong carbon-related undesirable
| environmental consequences, but probably not to such an extent
| in California as it does in Africa and South America. You'd
| have to find dam-specific data to verify that for Californian
| dams, though. It's not like with coal where burning 1 kg
| releases 3.6 kg of CO2 no matter where you burn it. Emissions
| of a dam depend at the very least on its surface area, depth,
| water temperature, biomass inflow etc., all of which are dam-
| specific.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > Does it include hydropower, which is renewable but has strong
| non-carbon-related undesirable environmental consequences?
|
| IIUC, the vast majority of ecological impact caused by hydro is
| already done. It is not making things exponentially worse.
|
| Am I missing something?
| emteycz wrote:
| No hydro - no obstacle in the waterway, migration paths are
| affected but still functional. Hydro - it's a meatgrinder.
| jhgb wrote:
| Depending on location, hydroelectric power can have (mostly
| because of decomposing vegetation) carbon-equivalent
| emissions ranging from several grams of CO2 per kWh, all the
| way up to around two thousand grams (!) per kWh. This greatly
| depends on location, with shallow, large-area tropical dams
| being the worst offenders, and cold, high altitude Nordic
| dams being the most environmentally friendly.
| tomas789 wrote:
| CAISO Materials on the event
| http://www.caiso.com/Documents/California-ISO-Hits-All-Time-...
| pydry wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fengning_Pumped_Storage_Powe...
|
| Looks like California should start building one of these 3.6GW
| 40GWh batteries since at this rate routine 120-150% renewable
| power days dont look so far off and it'll take about 6 years to
| build.
| CaliforniaKarl wrote:
| Here's a start: https://www.sdcwa.org/projects/san-vicente-
| pumping-facilitie...
| jeffbee wrote:
| Sounds big but California built over 2GW/8GW-h of battery
| capacity last year, so I think we're on pace. Nothing fancy,
| just a lot of batteries in cabinets.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Tesla at Moss Landing went live 2 days ago. 256 Megapacks,
| 182.5 MW / 730 MWh. The facility will eventually host
| 1,500MW/6,000MWh of battery storage.
|
| Tesla has also broken ground on a Megapack manufacturing
| facility (Lathrop, CA) employing 1000 people to build roughly
| 50GWh of storage per year.
|
| https://www.montereycountyweekly.com/blogs/news_blog/pg-es-n...
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| Is this why Calfornia energy is so expensive and constantly
| having blackouts?
| jeffbee wrote:
| No, because California isn't constantly having blackouts. There
| was one really infamous (among habitual Fox News viewers)
| capacity-related blackout in late 2020, in which fewer than 1%
| of customers were disconnected for less than 1 hour. That was
| precipitated by the sudden shutdown of Diablo Canyon, a nuclear
| power station. California hasn't had a capacity-related
| intentional disconnect since then.
| cge wrote:
| There have also been the _intentional_ blackouts of a sort,
| if I recall correctly, but those were to mitigate fire risk,
| not because of capacity, and aren 't particularly related to
| electricity _generation_.
| svachalek wrote:
| Yup, thanks to poor power line maintenance burning down big
| swathes of the state, we established the totally modern,
| first world solution of shutting off the power when it's
| hot and windy.
|
| But massive unintentional blackouts like say, Texas, nope
| not here.
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| Thanks for the extra context - went back and refreshed my
| memory and you are both correct. These are the articles I
| remember reading about CA blackouts from:
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/california-wildfires-power-
| out...
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/california-heat-
| wave-1.5687895
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-04-20 23:00 UTC)