[HN Gopher] California Grid Breezes Through Heatwave with Batteries
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California Grid Breezes Through Heatwave with Batteries
Author : ChuckMcM
Score : 95 points
Date : 2024-07-14 20:14 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thinc.blog)
(TXT) w3m dump (thinc.blog)
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| This is an interesting data point. Grid scale batteries are a
| pretty big change in how grids are managed, things like
| "anticipating load" and starting up "peaker plants" to catch that
| load are mitigated by the ability to wait and see while the
| batteries fill in the gap.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Batteries charge for free when renewables push spot prices to
| zero or negative and discharge when most needed and getting
| paid to do so; they comin' for fossil gas generation that pays
| to burn (fuel) and spin (per hour O&M).
| _Microft wrote:
| They might even be paid for consuming power because that
| provides stability to the grid [0] in such a situation. Too
| little load causes the frequency on the grid to rise which is
| only acceptable within narrow limits.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancillary_services_(electri
| c_p...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Absolutely, there is no doubt that are stealing grid
| service revenue from spinning thermal, and they also
| provide black start services (jump starting larger
| generators when they go out through an isolated
| transmission path).
| applied_heat wrote:
| I was under the impression that "grid forming" as opposed
| to "grid following" inverters were not a solved problem.
| Can you cite any battery plant with documented tests of
| energizing transmission or distribution systems?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-03-08/tesla-
| is-... | https://archive.today/xU9Kg
|
| https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/2024/01/12/Tesla%20BESS%
| 20G...
|
| Gambit Energy, owned by Tesla in Texas. Megapack supports
| grid forming in production (Hawaii and South Australia
| installations as well). "Virtual Machine Mode."
|
| It is solved, which shouldn't be controversial
| considering Tesla's power control maturity.
| wumeow wrote:
| Compare and contrast with Texas.
| batch12 wrote:
| Or with past California
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40908526
| gretch wrote:
| Why? Why does this new innovation in the california grid have
| to be all about dunking on texas?
|
| (As a californian) It's especially annoying coming from anyone
| californian, the state of Enron and PGE wildfires. Like we are
| so caught up in the vanity of comparison that we quickly rush
| to forgive our past sins while condemning the mistakes of
| others for forever and ever.
|
| How about as technologists, we just focus on innovating (which
| is not a zero sum game) and we don't compare ourselves to
| people who aren't doing as well.
| baq wrote:
| I'm in Europe and I can pick on Texas all day on energy. The
| separate grid is a self-inflicted gunshot wound in both feet.
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| Well, they do like their guns in Texas
| bravetraveler wrote:
| I live in Texas and support your message. We get cheap
| power and have cheap results _[under stress]_ to show for
| it, repeatedly
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| Then you should also know the way they run their energy
| network is similar to our euro free energy markets. Many
| many people in Europe pay spot price, the kind that people
| on HN freaked out when the pricing went crazy is pretty
| normal in EU.
| msandford wrote:
| How so? Would the Federal regulators have done a better job
| of making CenterPoint invest the right amount of money into
| tree trimming and placing lines underground?
|
| California is under Federal regulation and has significant
| problems where PG&E hasn't invested enough in reliability.
|
| If California just breezed through every natural disaster
| with no power outages and lower than Texas energy prices it
| would truly be a no brainer.
|
| But Texas has retail power rates in the $0.10-$0.20/kwh
| range. From what I understand $0.20 would be an absolute
| bargain in California and that $0.30-$0.50 per kwh is more
| what folks out there pay.
|
| It's not so compelling in that case. Of course I could have
| missed something. Please do let me know if I have.
| jfengel wrote:
| Because, despite having vast amounts of renewables, Texas is
| a key political contributor to our lack of a cohesive
| national strategy for ditching fossil fuels. Its national
| politicians regularly insist that climate change is a hoax.
|
| If a few decades of trying to use rationality have failed,
| I'm all for calling attention to their own local failures. If
| "dunking" on them is in bad faith, it is only because good
| faith arguments have failed so consistently.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Texas is the number two state in grid battery. No other state
| comes close to either California or Texas.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Texas has added a massive amount of batteries in a year or
| two. Worth noting, however, that as a fraction of their peak
| load California has about 3x as many batteries as Texas,
| because Texas uses far more energy and has much less rooftop
| solar. So while they are in the 2nd position it seems like a
| fairly distant 2nd.
| jmugan wrote:
| I dislike right-wing silliness as much as anyone, but this
| whole hate against Texas is just weird. We had Montana winter
| weather for a week and our grid went down. I had a business
| partner in California during a period a few years back and we
| had to reschedule meetings around when he would have
| electricity. We should just focus on doing better instead of
| fighting.
| skhunted wrote:
| The hate as you call it is not weird. It's a reasonable
| response to a state that consistently enacts laws and
| regulations that hurt the people. You get what you vote for
| and people in other states have to put up with idiotic Texas
| politicians who vote against hurricane Sandy aid while later
| requesting help. Texas deserves far more "hate" than it gets.
| jmugan wrote:
| You don't have to see the world in such stark terms. There
| is plenty of silliness everywhere.
| basementcat wrote:
| Perhaps it would be more helpful to try to understand what
| underlying mechanisms have created situations in which
| apparently self destructive tendencies are expressed in
| large societies (not just Texas but in general). What can
| we do to improve on this?
| shermantanktop wrote:
| Not a Texas-hater exactly, but there's something specific
| here wrt culture and identity. Texans routinely describe
| Texas as exceptional, as different, as unique.
|
| You may be right that there are generic problems at work,
| but when the protagonist insists that they aren't like
| others, it's not a surprise that people don't think that
| way.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Batteries are absolutely destroying demand for natural gas in
| California:
|
| https://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/calif...
| tuetnsuppe wrote:
| How does this graph consider that 2024 isn't over, yet, unlike
| the other years? Otherwise looks promising.
|
| Edit: just saw this is only for April of each year. But similar
| question: can we extrapolate from April to say November or not?
| infecto wrote:
| Love this graph, really demonstrates the power of low cost
| solar and increasingly lower cost batteries.
| IvyMike wrote:
| There's a future issue looming: at some point, a lot of the
| natural gas peaker plants build for 2021 capacity will be idle
| almost all of the time. (Based on how often my local peaker
| plant seems to run, that may actually already be the case).
|
| Keeping peaker plants around and having them ready year round
| for just a few days use is going to feel expensive; but
| decommissioning the plants too early has its own risks.
| z_rex wrote:
| I work in the power generation industry. The large scale
| introduction of Battery Storage is going to be a game changer for
| renewables since it will allow overproduction during the day to
| be stored for the evening peak. I think the current fad of
| peaking plants is somewhat overblown, as the average large scale
| battery storage system will not face the issues with starting
| reliability that can be present on large gas turbine power
| plants, which not only affect the grid but can be very expensive
| as a failed starts consumes large amounts of fuel to no effect.
| In the end, this will drive carbon-producing power capabilities
| to largely only run during the night when solar is out of
| service.
| hinkley wrote:
| Won't it also be useful for power transportation as well? Since
| batteries on the usage side of a bottleneck can peak shave and
| trough fill to levellize the load?
| DrBazza wrote:
| Why can't anywhere that has significant elevation should just
| pumped storage of water during the day and use hydro on the way
| back down?
| mariebks wrote:
| I'm not an expert on this topic, but I think it comes down to
| cost and scalability. You have to construct a new project
| with custom specs for the exact site you're on, and the
| permitting for a large environmental change is another drag.
| For large scale batteries, they all are a somewhat complex
| power electronic wrapper around mass produced battery cell
| cans or pouches that can be dropped anywhere. The cost
| declines of batteries are undeniable and are not stopping
| anytime soon.
| jopsen wrote:
| Not to mentioned all the dirty cheap second hand batteries
| becoming available as electric cars are scrapped.
|
| For grid storage second hand batteries might be fine. If
| taking them out of a scrapped car is feasible.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Grid battery deployment is faster than EV market
| penetration in the USA. This is not something that can
| siphon off a fraction of EV batteries. It is a huge
| market in its own right.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Batteries installed on concrete slabs are easier and cheaper,
| there are only so many places pumped hydro is feasible.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40919052
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Batteries can also be installed basically instantly, with
| storage being added incrementally. Unlike a years long
| project of constructing a hydro battery before it enters
| operation.
| riku_iki wrote:
| some existing example of this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gianelli_Power_Plant
| Timshel wrote:
| Because there are fewer places than expected where it really
| makes sense. Was discussed in an old video of Practical
| Engineering:
| https://youtu.be/66YRCjkxIcg?si=PXArfkXkbCODeSAF&t=290
| theptip wrote:
| There is zero chance that a mega-project like pumped hydro
| can be undertaken in the US in the current regulatory
| environment. NEPA review allows even clearly green projects
| like solar and wind to get bogged down in environmental
| review lawsuits. A project with major environmental impact
| like destroying an entire valley ecosystem to build a dam
| would be DoA.
| uyeieiii wrote:
| good. because if you are storing kinetic, better to use a
| flywheel or something with less environmental impact
| cogman10 wrote:
| It's not just nepa. Citizens really don't like pumped hydro
| which negatively impacts it's ability to be deployed (you
| need local permits as well as federal).
|
| Bear lake Idaho has been talking about putting in pumped
| storage since the 2000s. On paper, it's pretty much the
| perfect geography for it. However, various concerns from
| the impact on local fishing to the impacts on the lakebed
| have ground that process to a halt. It's a 20+ year project
| that's gone nowhere.
|
| That's why I'm largely negative on pumped hydro. On paper
| it seems nice, in practice it's almost impossible to get
| off the ground. Batteries, on the other hand, take almost
| no effort to install.
| nullc wrote:
| Do the math on how much energy you can store-- the volumes
| required for meaningful amounts of energy are just mind
| boggling. So you don't just need elevation, you need thousand
| of acres of valley or crater that you can flood and people
| tend to get a little testy about geoengineering at those
| scales these days.
| redleader55 wrote:
| > I think the current fad of peaking plants is somewhat
| overblown
|
| Do you mean peak powerplants will become obsolete? As far as I
| know, in many places peak powerplants are hydroelectric, which
| in the future, aided by local batteries, will allow filling the
| reservoir lakes to higher limits and covering greater peaks -
| eg. malfunctions - which in turn will make grids more stable.
|
| The big unknown, as far as I understand, is whether or not we
| have enough rare minerals to cover enough TWh of the daily
| peaks of energy-demands so we can have a flat daily curve. I'm
| sure in 10-15 years time the "renewables" will look a bit
| different than what we expect them today.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| you can make batteries out of iron or sulfur. no rare
| minerals required.
| redleader55 wrote:
| You are right: there are a lot of proposals at the moment
| trying to replace lithium. I'm hopeful, but let's wait
| until they are widely adopted before claiming victory.
| Let's not forget the carbon and environmental cost of such
| alternative batteries are not known because they are not
| mass built and mass deployed.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| When I read people talking about replacing lithium
| batteries I think of the decades of reading about
| material X replacing silicon in IC's and solar cells.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > The large scale introduction of Battery Storage is going to
| be a game changer for renewables
|
| Who are the major players in industry grade solutions for this?
|
| Tesla? BYD? Hitachi? Siemens?
| infecto wrote:
| In Texas I have seen a lot of Chinese brands.
|
| Sungrow and CATL as examples.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Thing I harp on is the logistics of battery installations are
| fantastic in about every way.
|
| If you have a couple of brown field acres of land next to an
| existing substation you can just buy and install containerized
| batteries. And you don't need specialized contractors to handle
| the job either. Pour concrete pads, forklift operators to take
| batteries off the truck and put them on the pad. And then
| standard HV techs to hook them up.
|
| And the permitting and environmental review is nil. Go ahead
| try and get a pumped storage system permitted somewhere.
|
| A fun one. Three gorges dam. You could replace the whole thing
| with solar and batteries for the cost it took to build it. And
| the area covered by solar panels would be the same as the lake
| behind the dam. Except you can put the solar panels on some
| ecologically and economically low value land where ever.
| nine_k wrote:
| This is cool. The sheer amount of mater required to build
| hydro storage should not be underestimated.
|
| Another win is that you can put something _below_ the solar
| panels, even grow shade-preferring plants below them. This is
| being done in many places. Otherwise it could be a storage
| area, a light industrial facility, a shopping mall, even a
| sports field. And for all the battery storage you can afford,
| of course.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Fission stans in shambles.
|
| https://observablehq.com/@jwb/caiso-battery-discharge-histor...
| pokstad wrote:
| No heat wave in SoCal yet. Let me know when the grid breezes
| through all of LA and OC having a heatwave.
| jeffbee wrote:
| It was 121o in Palm Springs and 100o in Riverside last Monday.
| I don't know what the population-weighted temperature was that
| day but that's pretty hot?
| User23 wrote:
| Meanwhile the San Diego heatwave is a scorching two degrees
| above average at 78 degrees[1]. Now if the Santa Anas start
| blowing during one of these inland heatwaves and the grid
| still holds up that will be great.
|
| [1] If this sounds like sarcasm, try living in coastal San
| Diego for a few years. You really acclimate to the perfect
| weather and 78 really does feel awfully hot. To say nothing
| of those freezes where it dips into the 60s. I've seen bar
| patios turn the heaters on then.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| It is essentially everything but costal San Diego that has
| been melting. Even 20 miles difference from the coast shows
| a huge spike in temperatures.
| mullingitover wrote:
| Socal and the general southwest has been setting records[1].
| Some highlights:
|
| > Palmdale and Lancaster on Tuesday experienced a record sixth
| straight day of temperatures at or above 110 degrees,
| surpassing the prior record of three days for both Antelope
| Valley cities. But wait, there's more -- officials say the
| streak is expected to continue the rest of the week, with highs
| forecast over 110 until Friday.
|
| > Las Vegas on Sunday smashed its record high temperature by
| three degrees, hitting 120 for the first time since record-
| keeping began in 1937.
|
| > Las Vegas is also expected to break its all-time record for
| consecutive days at or above 110 degrees, on its way there with
| six days in a row Tuesday. It's forecast to remain just as hot
| through next week, which would beat the prior 10-day streak.
|
| > Palm Springs on Friday hit 124 degrees, its highest
| temperature in recorded history.
|
| [1]
| https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-07-09/temperat...
| petulla wrote:
| Hope other states follow. The fact Arizona is still 80%+ non-
| renewable is just such a missed opportunity.
| inamberclad wrote:
| Arizona is a great case where agrovoltaics could really work.
| Solar reduces the sun load to something reasonable and
| minimizes evaporation, plants cool the air under the panels.
| Human / nature infrastructure symbiosis.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Recent local news story on this:
|
| "Arizona farmers turn to solar panels to shade crops, save
| water and generate power"
|
| https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2024/07/08/arizona-drought-
| so...
| testfoobar wrote:
| The big wattage numbers are great - but it is unclear how many
| watt-hours can be supplied - how many hours can California's grid
| run with batteries?
|
| It appears that the batteries are 4 hour batteries. Two
| questions: is there excess solar capacity in the winter to charge
| the batteries? How do the batteries perform in the winter - total
| storage capacity and discharge rate?
|
| It is misleading to compare a battery array that lasts for 4
| hours to a nuclear powered electric plant that supplies energy at
| a constant 24/7.
|
| https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/05/01/california-crosses-10...
|
| "Developers plan to add 6,813 MW of battery projects in the
| California Independent System Operator's (CAISO) domain this
| year, dominated by four-hour lithium-ion systems, roughly double
| their additions in 2023, according to an analysis of S&P Global
| Market Intelligence data."
| jeffbee wrote:
| Because of the regulatory/economic regime the state has
| established, all of these plants are 4h plants, or 4Wh/W if you
| prefer. That's the number they need to hit to get the top-tier
| payout from the grid operator.
| skybrian wrote:
| I suppose they could discharge slower, though, if eventually
| there's not as much demand?
| csdreamer7 wrote:
| > It is misleading to compare a battery array that lasts for 4
| hours to a nuclear powered electric plant that supplies energy
| at a constant 24/7.
|
| It is misleading to compare the two:
|
| * One has no risk of a nuclear meltdown in a very earthquake
| prone area (California).
|
| * One does not have 60+ year long successful history of
| lobbying governments and establishing regulatory capture (note
| I wrote 'successful')
|
| * one does have issue where they do not reprocess spent fuel
| adding billions of risk of nuclear fuel leaking into the
| environment; or if they do recycle, risk creating material for
| nuclear weapons.
|
| * one would struggle with it's strong baseline, yet inflexible
| power generation without batteries to handle afternoon peaks
|
| Keeping hearing random arguments for nuclear fission power (why
| not tidal?) and yet the regulatory capture and earthquake issue
| is still present in the US. We moved away from nuclear power
| after Japan's meltdown for a reason. With recent Supreme Court
| decisions and fracking causing earthquakes in Nebraska it has
| only gotten worse. I do not trust the industry with nuclear
| power. California spent a lot of money to establish a working
| grid that can be used for sustainable power until we get useful
| fusion (or that big supervolcano hits). Nuclear power is more
| needed in Texas right now, with it's broken grid, than
| California.
|
| More information on reprocessing nuclear waste:
| https://www.projectoptimist.us/why-us-doesnt-recycle-spent-n...
| https://thebulletin.org/2019/07/recycle-everything-america-e...
| cletus wrote:
| Here are some useful graphs showing how electricty demand varies
| by region, month and time of day [1].
|
| As expected, California peaks in July because there's more demand
| for cooling than heating. But what's a little surprising is that
| July is peak demand for _every_ region.
|
| There are many reasons why solar is so attractive as a power
| source, including:
|
| 1. It's the only form of power with direct electricty generation.
| There's no heating water to turn a turbine;
|
| 2. Solar basically has no moving parts. You can point panels
| towards the Sun to increase efficiency but the panel itself and
| transmission has no moving parts;
|
| 3. Solar panels continue to massively reduce in price and
| increase in efficiency and it's not clear where this ends;
|
| 4. Obviously solar generates its pwower when the Sun is shining.
| This conincides with when most power is usedk. Adding solar to
| the power generation mix reduces the peak load required to
| generate from other sources;
|
| 5. Solar installations can be really small, including on
| individual houses, reducing the transmission capacity required
| for last-mile and regional power transport.
|
| Batteries are just one method to store excess power for variable
| (renewable) energy sources. Another is carbon sequestration to
| create fuel directly, called Carbon Capture and Storage ("CCS")
| [2]. This isn't economic yet. But it may have applications in,
| say, cold climates where battery performance noticeably degrades.
|
| Solar power is the future.
|
| [1]: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915
|
| [2]: https://www.iisd.org/articles/deep-dive/why-carbon-
| capture-s...
| candiddevmike wrote:
| > But what's a little surprising is that July is peak demand
| for every region.
|
| Majority of homes use natural gas for heating in the winter. If
| they used electric heat instead, the difference would be
| enormous.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| More to the point, we want them to use electricity for heat
| instead. Heat pumps are quite efficient and natural gas emits
| CO2. But contrary to air conditioning load, heating load is
| inverse to sunlight, so we need a way to supply that
| electricity _at night_.
| dralley wrote:
| > 1. It's the only form of power with direct electricty
| generation. There's no heating water to turn a turbine;
|
| > 2. Solar basically has no moving parts. You can point panels
| towards the Sun to increase efficiency but the panel itself and
| transmission has no moving parts;
|
| This is kind of it's own problem, the fact that both solar and
| wind don't have moving parts that are directly connected to the
| grid and rotate at grid frequency necessitates a lot of other
| equipment to bring frequency stability back.
|
| Some old power plants are being converted into synchronous
| condensers - the turbines replaced with giant flywheels - for
| this reason.
| gumby wrote:
| The distribution grid did not do as well -- lots of outages in
| the sierras and points north.
| xnx wrote:
| I was confused until I realized title omits "renewables". Having
| peak solar demand during peak air conditioning demand is
| beautiful harmony.
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