| ▲ | nradov 3 hours ago | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
We haven't been building much battery storage to go along with that solar power. Perhaps we will eventually, but until that actually happens the base load requirement represents a hard limit on the amount of solar generation capacity that the grid can handle. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | gpm 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
We started scaling batteries after solar (because the technology reached the point where they were profitable after solar)... but they're being installed at scale now, and at a rapdily increasing rate. Batteries provided 42.8% of California's power at 7pm a few days ago (which came across my social media feed as a new record) [1]. And it wasn't a particularly short peak, they stayed above 20% of the power for 3 hours and 40 minutes. It's a non-trivial amount of dispatchable power. [1] https://www.gridstatus.io/charts/fuel-mix?iso=caiso&date=202... Batteries are a form of dispatchable power not "base load". There is no "base load" requirement. Base load is simply a marketing term for power production that cannot (economically) follow the demand curve and therefore must be supplemented by a form of dispatchable power, like gas peaker plants, or batteries. "Base load" power is quite similar to solar in that regard. The term makes sense if you have a cheap high-capitol low running-cost source of power (like nuclear was supposed to be, though it failed on the cheap front) where you install as much of it as you can use constantly and then you follow the demand curve with a different source of more expensive dispatchable power. That's not the reality we find ourselves in unless you happen to live near hydro. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | cogman10 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
> We haven't been building much battery storage to go along with that solar power That too has pretty recently changed. Even my home state of Idaho is deploying pretty big batteries. It takes almost no time to deploy it's all permitting and public comment at this point that takes the time. Batteries have gotten so cheap that the other electronics and equipement at this point are bigger drivers of the cost of installation. Here's an 800MWh station that's being built in my city [1]. I think people are just generally stuck with the perception of where things are currently at. They are thinking of batteries and solar like it's 2010 or even 2000. But a lot has changed very rapidly even since 2018. [1] https://www.idahopower.com/energy-environment/energy/energy-... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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