California's Battery Array Is as Powerful as 12 Nuclear Power Plants
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Re: California's Battery Array Is as Powerful as 12 Nuclear Power Plants
#2[deleted]
Re: California's Battery Array Is as Powerful as 12 Nuclear Power Plants
#3This is a seriously impressive achievement. I wish there was a more comprehensive engineering deep dive, but I wasn't able to find one.
So why is California's electricity the most expensive in the country?
Re: California's Battery Array Is as Powerful as 12 Nuclear Power Plants
#4This is a seriously impressive achievement. I wish there was a more comprehensive engineering deep dive, but I wasn't able to find one. So why is California's electricity the most expensive in the country?
California imports a third of its electricity, and that's expensive. It gets almost another third from natural gas. They've been changing rapidly from fossil fuels and nuclear to renewables and that's pretty capital intensive. And there have been some huge costs associated with the wildfires.
There's a bit more technical info on California battery storage here:
https://www.ess-news.com/2025/04/11/california-battery-domin...
Re: California's Battery Array Is as Powerful as 12 Nuclear Power Plants
#5This is a seriously impressive achievement. I wish there was a more comprehensive engineering deep dive, but I wasn't able to find one. So why is California's electricity the most expensive in the country?
California imports a third of its electricity, and that's expensive. It gets almost another third from natural gas. They've been changing rapidly from fossil fuels and nuclear to renewables and that's pretty capital intensive. And there have been some huge costs associated with the wildfires. There's a bit more technical info on California battery storage here: https://www.ess-news.com/2025/04/11/california-battery-d…
It appears expensive electricity is mostly a policy decision. Schemes to support low carbon energy, strict emissions controls etc.
Let everyone do what they were doing in 1980, and prices would be rock bottom by now.
Re: California's Battery Array Is as Powerful as 12 Nuclear Power Plants
#6Just for a moment, try to imagine how much wind, solar and battery storage can be bought with the money required to build just one regular nuclear power plant (gigawatt output).
The real thing delaying the energy transition is politics, we have the technology.
And on a really small scale, here in NL we can build our own home battery storage systems with cheap 15kWh or 32kWh battery kits from China. Combine that with dynamic energy contracts it's amazing.
A 15kWh setup is maybe 3500 Euro, and 32kWh around 4500 Euro. Lasts at least 15+ years counting battery cycles.
Re: California's Battery Array Is as Powerful as 12 Nuclear Power Plants
#7This is a seriously impressive achievement. I wish there was a more comprehensive engineering deep dive, but I wasn't able to find one. So why is California's electricity the most expensive in the country?
California imports a third of its electricity, and that's expensive. It gets almost another third from natural gas. They've been changing rapidly from fossil fuels and nuclear to renewables and that's pretty capital intensive. And there have been some huge costs associated with the wildfires. There's a bit more technical info on California battery storage here: https://www.ess-news.com/2025/04/11/california-battery-d…
The problem with renewables I have is that "what's good for the earth" and capitalism simply don't mix.
Solar was fundamentally supposed to be almost-free electricity. You put a bunch of panels up and free energy from the nearest star. The stark reality though is that the people and institutions in control of solar equipment (this includes manufacturers, tariffs, etc.) reprice their stuff to match the price of the dirty electricity. And then they reprice their stuff again to assume that everyone loves to borrow money. At that point it becomes not worth it at all.
No, I don't want a solar installation to pay for itself in 15 years. I want equipment that gives me free electricity starting next month. If it costs less than a months' worth of electricity and I won't have an electricity bill starting next month, I'm interested. If not, it's outside my budget and planning horizon.
Re: California's Battery Array Is as Powerful as 12 Nuclear Power Plants
#8 > For the first time, California discharged just over 12,000 megawatts, equivalent to 12 large nuclear plants, of energy from its battery arrays. That’s enough to meet over 40 percent of the state’s energy demand.
Re: California's Battery Array Is as Powerful as 12 Nuclear Power Plants
#9Weird units.
Batteries are normally talked about in terms of energy storage, not power.
IE: Batteries overall have 0 power. Everything they make had to come from somewhere else. Actually, because of losses in the 20%ish range, it's probably more accurate to say that California's Battery Array is __COSTING__ 2 nuclear power plants worth of power in electrical waste.
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Talk about GW-hrs of storage. You know, the value people actually cares about?
Re: California's Battery Array Is as Powerful as 12 Nuclear Power Plants
#10this seems misleading. the article claims:
12,000 megawatts, equivalent to 12 large nuclear plants, of energy from its battery arrays.
watts are power, not energy. for example, a tea kettle might require 2kilowatts. this does not tell you how much does it cost you to use the tea kettle, because it does not tell you how long the tea kettle is consuming 2kilowatts.