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California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind

latimes.com

51–60 of 363 posts

Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Texans will keep losing power during winter storms due to lack of regulations.

This is ignorant culture war politics and/or anti-Texasism. I should point out that cold temperatures place a huge demand on the grid because consumers don't want to winterize for the marginal once-a-decade blizzard any more than utilities; around half our homes have relatively inefficient resistance heaters as opposed to furnaces. We have a lot more growth in the past few years than most other places, both in relati…

I don't think their comment was either ignorant or anti-Texan. Essentially all of the conclusions in the FERC report on the February 2021 events were those of regulatory failure. Generating assets did not have winterization plans that state inspectors actually enforced, most of the failed assets failed at temperatures above their design minima, natural gas delivery system were totally deregulated at the state level, ERCOT winter forecast practices were poor, etc.

Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind

#52
post #26

There'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…

While Sodium Ion may be the future of grid batteries, it's not the present. As long as LFP is cheaper, there is no reason to go with Sodium.

This calculus will probably change in 3-5 years, but today Sodium is more expensive and therefore has little demand without some form of discount or subsidy.

The switch will be rapid once the economics make sense, but they don't yet.

Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind

#53
post #6
post #3

> California hasn’t issued an emergency plea for the public to conserve energy, known as a Flex Alert, since 2022. Feels like that statement deserves to be contextualized with weather data. There were a few summers leading up to that where all of the major metro areas shared concurrent record high heat days, and sometimes coincided with poor air quality from wildfires (meaning more people closed their windows and ran…

> There were a few summers leading up to that where all of the major metro areas shared concurrent record high heat days, and sometimes coincided with poor air quality from wildfires (meaning more people closed their windows and ran AC even if they wouldn't have otherwise.) This is underselling it, if anything. The multi-day heatwave around Labor Day 2022 extended across most of the western US, not just California. T…

Yep. The previous high was in 2006(!). Overall, statewide energy consumption seems to be flat or declining.

In 2020, there were extremely high heat days in August, with wildfire smoke covering the state. Thankfully I was out of town, but my wife was suffering, unable to cool the house OR open a window. In 2021 or 2022 I finally broke down and bought a window-mounted AC unit for my office, as I work from home. In 2024 and 2025 I didn't even bother installing it, the summers have been so mild.

https://www.caiso.com/documents/californiaisopeakloadhistory...

Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind

#54
post #41

Interesting how they never mention that these are Tesla Megapack 2 XL units (LFP chemistry) manufactured at Tesla’s Lathrop, CA “Megafactory.”

> Interesting how they never mention that these are Tesla Megapack 2 XL units

It's a story about California's battery storage. Tesla hasn't built all of that capacity.

For a Tesla (or other battery producer) press release? Sure. For an article about the general phenomenon? Irrelevant to the point that if it were included I'd be suspicious of the article being a plant.

Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind

#55
post #41

Interesting how they never mention that these are Tesla Megapack 2 XL units (LFP chemistry) manufactured at Tesla’s Lathrop, CA “Megafactory.”

That information does not fit the narrative so it is left unsaid.

Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Texas will stay ahead for the foreseeable future. California keeps shooting itself in the foot with regulatory hurdles and permit issues.

And Texans will keep losing power during winter storms due to lack of regulations.

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Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind

#57
post #27

I 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...

PG&E's corruption is laid bare by Silicon Valley Power, which serves the town of Santa Clara, charging less than half what PG&E does for the house a few blocks over [1].

[1] https://www.siliconvalleypower.com/residents/rates-and-fees

Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind

#58
post #41

Interesting how they never mention that these are Tesla Megapack 2 XL units (LFP chemistry) manufactured at Tesla’s Lathrop, CA “Megafactory.”

Interesting how the only dollar figure mentioned in the article is about money the Trump administration has put up to refurbish coal plants.

Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind

#59
post #41

Interesting how they never mention that these are Tesla Megapack 2 XL units (LFP chemistry) manufactured at Tesla’s Lathrop, CA “Megafactory.”

That information does not fit the narrative so it is left unsaid.

> That information does not fit the narrative so it is left unsaid

This is a good opportunity to calibrate your sense of truth.

The LA Times is owned by this South African-born immigrant [1]. (Himself the the son of "Chinese immigrant parents who fled China during the Japanese occupation.") He is, like Elon, pro-Trump (after, like Musk, supporting Democrats when they were in power) [2]. And he, like Elon, has censored his publication to reflect his views, including by opposing anti-Musk content [3].

If you're reading an article in the LA Times and, being upset it isn't mentioning Tesla, concluding it's part of an anti-Musk conspiracy, you're dead wrong. But you're probably also wrong about other adjacent hypotheses.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Soon-Shiong

[2] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/13/la-times-owner-mane...

[3] https://www.status.news/p/los-angeles-times-patrick-soon-shi...

Re: California invests in battery energy storage, leaving rolling blackouts behind

#60
post #46
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criminally overpriced. We're not getting shit for it either. God forbid you live in any of the more woody parts of California either. You'll have to have your own battery or generator anyway. As someone who plans to live in the Santa Cruz Mountains long term, I will be going completely off grid as PG&E will just cut power forever rather than fix anything.

Why is PG&E so poorly run? I don't live there, just follow the news and their name comes up constantly in negative press.

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