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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: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday July 31 2019, @05:56PM (1 child)
OK, you don't understand it. But *ALL* the electric utilities do, because storage has been a big problem. If this solution works well, look for the electric utilities to start promoting solar, as long as they can get paid for storing the overflow. (They don't like generators, either.)
Without good storage solutions, when the amount of local excess generation gets above, I think it was 30%, the grid becomes unstable. This is not good for ANYBODY. With good storage, you still need to maintain the grid, and that's not cheap.
FWIW, if wind were a common, there'd be more hate for wind than for solar, because it's less predictable.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday August 02 2019, @03:36AM
Indeed - if they can charge you... twice(?) as much to provide power on demand as they pay for your excess when available, then there's a nice economic window for someone to make money operating grid-scale battery facilities. Essentially you're renting space in someone else's batteries, along with use of the power grid to get the energy there and back again, and at least occasionally access to backup power generators. All handled invisibly for you.
Heck, with the right incentives you could radically decentralize the power storage as well - make it easy for any idiot to allocate N% of their home battery system to "grid support" for a fair market value and anyone with the capital could get in on the profit - even people with no generating capacity. I imagine a Powerwall could makes for a great alternative to an emergency generator, especially if it would actually pay for itself within several years and start turning a profit.