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California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
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Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
#22Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
#23I remember the bad old days of rolling black outs when Enron was doing energy arbitrage with Calfifornia's electricity. A more recent negative event was the battery fire at Moss Landing on the Monterrey Bay near where I live. If we use Sodium-ion batteries in the future we won't have that risk. "On January 16, 2025, the Moss Landing 300 battery energy storage system at the Moss Landing Vistra power plant (Monterey Co…
The reports I read said this was an older installation - was that one setup in the same way as a modern plant would be done? That is to say - was there anything unique about this failure scenario? The pictures I saw was that the Moss batteries were located inside a building. My mental image of battery storage is freight-sized containers offset from each other - presumably to minimize fire risk. Or was this plant a co…
The moss landing project has been expanded through several iterations. It started construction back in 2019 which is near ancient in terms of how fast the BESS industry has evolved.
Utilizing NMC cells which were popular at the time instead of the more stable LFP variety making up the vast majority of storage projects today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moss_Landing_Power_Plant#Batte...
Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
#24I remember the bad old days of rolling black outs when Enron was doing energy arbitrage with Calfifornia's electricity. A more recent negative event was the battery fire at Moss Landing on the Monterrey Bay near where I live. If we use Sodium-ion batteries in the future we won't have that risk. "On January 16, 2025, the Moss Landing 300 battery energy storage system at the Moss Landing Vistra power plant (Monterey Co…
Any time you have hundreds of megawatts of energy stored in a small area there is risk. This includes steam boilers, nuclear reactors, batteries, dams, etc. No getting away from that. Not saying that some battery chemistry might not be easier to manage than others.
Well we're probably going to see flow batteries take over in fixed position arrays which will mitigate the risk of fire pretty substantially, being low density and liquid. It's challenging though not impossible to light salt water on fire.
Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
#25This is the way. It's become standard practice in China, which now leads to the world with half of all battery installations.
China is a mixed bad, they also lead the world in new coal power plants. https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-...
The expectation being that they should instead endure energy shortages for the common good until their renewable installations catch up with demand? A high bar, especially for a nation with a greater share of its electricity from renewables than most US states.
Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
#26There's this post about sodium-ion batteries from two days ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45677243
My understanding is that they are particularly good for large scale storage. It looks like it's relevant part of China's strategy.
Yet, there seems to be close to 0 in the US in general (except from some pilots). I find it weird at least to boast about battery energy storage as a strategy while ignoring the most relevant aspect wrt to the future of battery-based storage.
Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
#27I don't really care if the power stays on for five-nines as long as I'm still paying 61¢/kW-h for it :/
https://www.pge.com/assets/pge/docs/account/rate-plans/resid...
Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
#28[flagged]
Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
#29This is the way. It's become standard practice in China, which now leads to the world with half of all battery installations.
China is a mixed bad, they also lead the world in new coal power plants. https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-...
And smashing everything in Nuclear, whilst America turns to fossil fuels.
Much as I am against autocracy and oppression, china is doing very well at improving their energy sector.
Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any time you have hundreds of megawatts of energy stored in a small area there is risk. This includes steam boilers, nuclear reactors, batteries, dams, etc. No getting away from that. Not saying that some battery chemistry might not be easier to manage than others.
Well we're probably going to see flow batteries take over in fixed position arrays which will mitigate the risk of fire pretty substantially, being low density and liquid. It's challenging though not impossible to light salt water on fire.
I thought the prospects for flow batteries were becoming fairly dire due to the decline in cost of Li-ion cells.
LFP promises better fire behavior than older Li-ion technologies, I think.