71–80 of 282 posts
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
As a Californian I think the electricity itself is pretty cheap at ~9cents/kwh but the total delivery costs are 3x that.
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
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.
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...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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 tot…
> 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 t…
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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 tot…
... in any case, great progress, let's get to 100% California!
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
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
So the title should be - CA generated 97% of electricity from renewable energy for a brief moment on April 3?
Also, solar generation is highest during march/April. Cooler temps and good angles. Demand is lower too, as temps are good for people.