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California Grid Breezes Through Heatwave with Batteries

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Re: California Grid Breezes Through Heatwave with Batteries

#61

Post by uyeieiii »

theptip wrote: post #59
DrBazza wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

good. because if you are storing kinetic, better to use a flywheel or something with less environmental impact

Re: California Grid Breezes Through Heatwave with Batteries

#62

Post by nullc »

DrBazza wrote: post #25
z_rex wrote: post #10

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 tu…

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?

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.

Re: California Grid Breezes Through Heatwave with Batteries

#64

Post by shermantanktop »

basementcat wrote: post #58
skhunted wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

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.

Re: California Grid Breezes Through Heatwave with Batteries

#65

Post by [deleted] »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #51
inamberclad wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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...

[deleted]

Re: California Grid Breezes Through Heatwave with Batteries

#66

Post by IvyMike »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #8

Batteries are absolutely destroying demand for natural gas in California: https://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/calif...

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.

Re: California Grid Breezes Through Heatwave with Batteries

#67

Post by nine_k »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #54
z_rex wrote: post #10

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 tu…

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 t…

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.

Re: California Grid Breezes Through Heatwave with Batteries

#69

Post by cogman10 »

theptip wrote: post #59
DrBazza wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

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.

Re: California Grid Breezes Through Heatwave with Batteries

#70

Post by dralley »

cletus wrote: post #46

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. Th…

> 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.

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