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from the re-energizing-the-power-industry dept.
Tesla's Megapack Battery is Big Enough to Help Grids Handle Peak Demand:
Tesla announced a new massive battery today called Megapack that could replace so-called "peaker" power plants, which provide energy when a local electrical grid gets overloaded. Tesla says that Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) will deploy several Megapacks at Moss Landing on Monterrey Bay in California, which is one of four locations where the California utility plans to install more cost-effective energy storage solutions.
Each Megapack can store up to 3 megawatt hours (MWh) of energy at a time, and it's possible to string enough Megapacks together to create a battery with more than 1 GWh of energy storage, Tesla says. The company says this would be enough energy to power "every home in San Francisco for six hours." Telsa will deliver the Megapacks fully assembled, and they include "battery modules, bi-directional inverters, a thermal management system, an AC main breaker and controls." Tesla says the Megapack takes up 40 percent less space, requires a tenth of the parts to build, and can be assembled 10 times as fast as alternative energy storage solutions.
Also at cnet.
Would also have the benefit of essentially instant activation versus peaker plants which take some amount of time to spin up, even if kept warmed up and idling.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday July 31 2019, @04:47PM (1 child)
Another place where utilities are resisting progress is on smart grids. To have more decentralized power like batteries and wind/solar the grid needs to be smarter. But that costs money and the utilities resist.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 01 2019, @07:22AM
It isn't just the utilities resisting. The one around here had to go through recertification of their meters to switch to smart ones. There are normally a handful of people at utility meetings and even less comment. There were 5 people there to comment because the smart meters would allow the meter to charge different amounts in each direction. There were 38 people there to comment about the smart meters causing everything from headaches, nausea, and muscle pain, to cancer, autism, and infertility. Finally, one of the board asked the utility representative for a six month delay because she wanted the utility to provide evidence that the meters were safe. "After all, these people didn't show up for nothing. There must be some sort of evidence it's bad, right?" My friend, the utility representative, just told her she could call one of their engineers would be happy to talk about it with her.
That was a long story, but should illustrate the problems they do have when they finally want to put them in. But, you really should Google it because that crazy goes quite deep.