<story><title>California Grid Breezes Through Heatwave with Batteries</title><url>https://thinc.blog/2024/07/14/california-grid-breezes-through-heat-wave-due-to-renewables-batteries/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>z_rex</author><text>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 turbine power plants, which not only affect the grid but can be very expensive as a failed starts consumes large amounts of fuel to no effect. In the end, this will drive carbon-producing power capabilities to largely only run during the night when solar is out of service.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Gibbon1</author><text>Thing I harp on is the logistics of battery installations are fantastic in about every way.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;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 to hook them up.&lt;p&gt;And the permitting and environmental review is nil. Go ahead try and get a pumped storage system permitted somewhere.&lt;p&gt;A fun one. Three gorges dam. You could replace the whole thing with solar and batteries for the cost it took to build it. And the area covered by solar panels would be the same as the lake behind the dam. Except you can put the solar panels on some ecologically and economically low value land where ever.</text></comment>
<story><title>California Grid Breezes Through Heatwave with Batteries</title><url>https://thinc.blog/2024/07/14/california-grid-breezes-through-heat-wave-due-to-renewables-batteries/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>z_rex</author><text>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 turbine power plants, which not only affect the grid but can be very expensive as a failed starts consumes large amounts of fuel to no effect. In the end, this will drive carbon-producing power capabilities to largely only run during the night when solar is out of service.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>redleader55</author><text>&amp;gt; I think the current fad of peaking plants is somewhat overblown&lt;p&gt;Do you mean peak powerplants will become obsolete? As far as I know, in many places peak powerplants are hydroelectric, which in the future, aided by local batteries, will allow filling the reservoir lakes to higher limits and covering greater peaks - eg. malfunctions - which in turn will make grids more stable.&lt;p&gt;The big unknown, as far as I understand, is whether or not we have enough rare minerals to cover enough TWh of the daily peaks of energy-demands so we can have a flat daily curve. I&amp;#x27;m sure in 10-15 years time the &amp;quot;renewables&amp;quot; will look a bit different than what we expect them today.</text></comment>