from the reduced-pollution-keeps-the-biters-away dept.
Florida Utility to Close Natural gas Plants, Build Massive Solar-Powered Battery:
On Thursday, Florida Power and Light (FPL) announced that it would retire two natural gas plants and replace those plants with what is likely to be the world's largest solar-powered battery bank when it's completed in 2021.
FPL, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy, serves approximately 10 million customers in Florida. The utility says its plan, including additional efficiency upgrades and smaller battery installations throughout its service area, will save customers more than $100 million in aggregate through avoided fuel costs. FPL also says its battery and upgrade plan will help avoid 1 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
The plan calls for the construction of a 409 megawatt (MW) / 900 megawatt-hour battery installation at what will be called the FPL Manatee Energy Storage Center. For context, the largest battery installation in the world was built by Tesla at a Hornsdale wind farm in South Australia; that has a capacity and power rating of 100 MW / 129 MWh.
The batteries will be charged by an existing solar plant in Manatee County, FPL said. Being able to store solar power in batteries is a huge advantage to the utility. Solar photovoltaic panels are intermittent sources of energy, because they only produce power when the sun is shining. Generally, that happens in the morning and toward the middle of the day, when power demand tends to be low. If a utility can store excess power in a bank of batteries, it can deploy that electricity later in the afternoon when people return home from work and turn on their air conditioners, running up electricity demand.
FPL made no announcement as to the supplier, price, or even the battery chemistry. Maybe they can arrange to have one of these patrolling the grounds?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @09:39AM (4 children)
The smallest nuclear power plant in the United States produces 582 megawatts with one reactor.
(Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday March 31 2019, @11:46AM (1 child)
Beautiful thought. We love nuclear, don't we? Let me tell you, if they want nuclear the approvals are going to be very fast. I'll approve that one as fast as I approved Keystone XL. Get those papers on my desk and I'll put a beautiful signature on them. We want coal & nuclear for Florida. Not solar. And you're thinking, "but Florida is the Sunshine State, it has so much beautiful sunshine!" True. But -- people don't know this -- it also has hurricanes. Horrible hurricanes. Look what happened in Puerto Rico, they had one hurricane after another. And the hurricanes knocked down all the solar. They blew and blew and the solar panels all fell down. That doesn't happen with nuclear. Nuclear, they put it inside a nice strong building -- maybe too strong, maybe they can save some money there. And the hurricane comes, nothing happens. Because of the strong concrete. It's not bothered by tornados, by planes crashing into it, by earthquake, floods -- nothing. It just runs and runs. You have electricity in the daytime. And you have it all night long. All night. And you can keep months of fuel at your nuclear plant. Solar can't touch that.
And, they edited out the worst part of the story. About how F.P.L. closed two Beautiful Clean Coal plants. And they want to close another -- their last one. Everyone else is moving very strongly into Clean Coal. Not F.P.L., why? Coal is another one that's so incredible in a hurricane -- or many hurricanes. Because they don't burn the Coal out in the open. They put it into the very special Coal Furnace. And the wind can't get to it there. The rain can't get to it. Coal, you can keep so much at your plant. Months and months of fuel. You just make a big beautiful pile, very easy. The wind won't blow it away. Rain won't wash it away. When you need it, it's there. Day or night, day after night. Night after day. Day after day. Puerto Rico, they wish they had a Coal plant. And they wouldn't have had that terrible blackout if they had a Coal plant. F.P.L. is being very foolish. And the Florida environmentalists, I assume, love them for it. They won't love it when the hurricanes come. When the horrible blackout comes. And all the refrigerators stop running. Look what happened in Venezuela, they have a very weak & ineffective leader. Who can't keep the power on. And his people are very food starved. Because, no power means no refrigerator. And that means VERY SPOILED food!!!!
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday March 31 2019, @07:07PM
(cont) By the way, I approved the nuclear for Saudi Arabia. Known as Part 810. That one's a Michael Flynn number, he wanted to do the partnership w/Saudi, Russia "people" & U.A.E. but his friends from Russia, unfortunately, changed their minds. And Saudi is our best friends in the World -- after Israel. But Florida is ourselves, it's U.S.A. I own some property there myself. So the approval for that one is going to be as fast as possible. But, they have to ask for it. Just ask, guys!!!!!
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Sunday March 31 2019, @02:53PM
A nuclear plant might produce more megawatts, but unlike a nuclear plant which attracts earthquakes, a battery storage plant full of LiIon batteries will only attract hurricanes. The physics is similar to how trailer parks attract tornadoes.
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 01 2019, @08:36AM
And how much does it cost?
(Score: 4, Funny) by krishnoid on Sunday March 31 2019, @09:45AM (5 children)
If they're already storing manatee energy there, why not have the manatees themselves police the installation?
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday March 31 2019, @12:29PM (4 children)
I think you've misunderstood how the power is generated, the storage center stores energy obtained by burning manatees to drive turbines, a thousand pounds of blubber burns really well. So there won't be any manatees left to police things. That job will be done by the gators.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @02:52PM
This is simply misleading. Before the manatees are converted into direct energy they are propelled down a shaft containing turbine blades by gravity. This is a hybrid hydro-aquatic-mammal system that not only converts their kinetic energy into electricity, it stuns the manatees so they do not suffer (as much) when converted to energy via a heat-related process.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Sunday March 31 2019, @02:56PM (2 children)
A battery energy storage plant should be augmented by a "clean coal" plant to generate the energy which the batteries store. The existing natural gas plants should not be dismantled, but instead should be used to burn the clean coal. That way we create the mostest number of jobs in FL. Conveniently locate the whole affair such that a tour of it can become another Disney attraction to show how efficiently we can burn natural gas to burn clean coal to charge batteries.
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday March 31 2019, @05:52PM (1 child)
Replace natural gas with coal? Tell me, Mister Troll, what coal company you have stock in? Coal is the filthiest fuel on the planet.
If you were fishing for a "funny" mod, you missed it by a mile.
Impeach Donald Palpatine and his sidekick Elon Vader
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday March 31 2019, @08:23PM
Um duh, he pretty much spelled it out [yahoo.com] in the post.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @12:33PM (7 children)
lets hope it works and doenst turn into the poster child for "solar battery" failure. the 3mile-chernobyl-fukushima poster child but for solar so to speak.
anyways i am not putting all my eggs in one basket, and would recommend to distribute the danger from
a hurrican fallout over many many geografically dispersed house roofs and batteries instead of one
single location and one single solar powered profit bank account ...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday March 31 2019, @01:02PM (6 children)
I don't think so. A Fukushima-like event at a solar facility wouldn't create the same kind of risk or panic.
Hurricane damage is business as usual for Florida. They are going to get hundreds of billions of dollars in future damage from hurricanes, and damage to solar installation would probably slip under the radar. Unless you are arguing that the solar/battery stuff is more prone to hurricane damage than a natural gas plant (direct strike, category 3-5, storm surge if applicable).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @02:34PM (2 children)
Hmmm, big wing shaped solar panels in a hurricane. Yeah almost anything will survive a hurricane better than that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @03:34PM (1 child)
*sigh* didnt get my drift.
its not just that the 3 pronge nuclear disaster poster children are radioactif in nature but rather that they are centralised.
solar doesnt have the requirment of having to be centralized ... at all.
now florida is pretty exposed to natural wind disasters so solar is perfect: wind disaster isnt localized and solar doesnt have to localised. one would reason that dispersing the energy production over a wide area is natural ... like hand in glove. with various installation versions and evolution(tm) one installation would survive and make many future baby installations totally adapted to floridas climate.
it would be a nuclear engineers wet dream if they could make 1000 fukushima nuclear powerplants and see which one survives ... errr ... is safest. doable with solar not so with nuclear.
of course the mentality of a monster central solar powerplant is the same as with any central powerplant: centralized profits and ... centralized disaster: the same welding, same foundation same screw a thousand times over. cheap to order, purchase and install but the same failure mode can be repeated a thousand times over for one "monoculture like" solar ... godzilla.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday March 31 2019, @06:02PM
The future will probably have lots of centralized solar plants and home panels.
The home panels will get cheaper and better to the point where everyone will want them. Home owners could get the solar roof tiles that look more stylish, or small, very efficient, and lightweight panels. Add in subsidies and the panels will be paid off very quickly. Some homeowners will get scammed by their power company into accepting cheap or free solar panels but getting none of the returns. Nevertheless, the percentage of homes with panels will increase.
With centralized you can do stuff like heat a tower of molten salt to store energy. You could also use mirrors in space to concentrate extra sunlight onto the solar plant, running it for more hours per day and at a greater intensity.
If hurricanes are an issue, move the stuff another 100 miles inland.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday March 31 2019, @05:26PM (1 child)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 01 2019, @08:01AM
LiFePO4 battery chemistry is only slightly less efficient per volume than LiPo(lymer), with the advantages the batteries don't catch fire and a lot higher life time.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 01 2019, @02:14AM
A Fukushima-like event would leave me wondering just what they were doing there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @04:04PM (2 children)
" ...can deploy that electricity later in the afternoon when people return home from work and turn on their air conditioners, running up electricity demand."
wow working in florida must suck. i would demand air conditioning at work ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @07:14PM
The afternoon and evening require more power for two reasons. The first is that most homes have their thermostats set back during the day and businesses are set back at night. In the afternoon period, which are also the hottest part of the day, you have both the home and business air conditioners running to reach their occupied temperature. Therefore, you have more power usage in the afternoon and early evening.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday March 31 2019, @07:46PM
I'm very rich. But, not everybody is rich like me. "People" want to save money, right? So when they go to work, nobody's in their apartment, they turn Air Conditioner off. And their apartment becomes very hot. Very hot. And they have a wonderful day at work, they come home, they want to be nice and cool, they turn Air Conditioner on again. And Air Conditioner has to run for a long time, very late in the afternoon -- or early in the evening. People don't know this, the solar, even when the sun is shining beautifully, can be making ZERO electricity. Or, very little. The thing the solar is good for -- electric in the middle of the day. Not early in the morning. And, not late in the afternoon. Just the middle. So many folks are working in the middle of the day, the Air Conditioner at work cools down their Office -- or Factory -- with solar, that's fine. Coffee Machine, running fine on the solar. But when they come home, where's the solar? There is none, or there's very little. When so many people are running Air Conditioner at full blast. This is known as Duck Curve. Very famous and it's killing them in California. They went all in on Solar Wind and now they're hurting BIG TIME. So foolish. We need ALL FORMS of energy, but that MUST INCLUDE Coal & Nuclear!!!!
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday March 31 2019, @10:25PM
From almost the moment I was born -- passive Income. And my children "work" for me. I mean, can we call it work? I'm sending them all over the World, to Saudi Arabia, to Israel, to China -- many places. And they're doing a great job making so many deals, it's great for our Country and they're making some money for themselves too.
And I loved "working" with Macaulay Culkin, great young guy and that was really my big break into acting -- which I love. It's known as Child Labor and so much of our economy depends on it. But we have very strict regulations about that. We did Home Alone 2 with Macaulay, very big movie. No problems with the Child Labor Law on that one. But, if we decided to do it as a porno? Big problems, we'd have to wait until Macaulay turned 18 -- or use somebody older. I'm a very big supporter of Child Labor Law.
But in Nambia that one's VERY WEAK & INEFFECTIVE. You hear about Amnesty International, also known as Amnesty. So Liberal, right? And they're saying, Battery for Electric Car is not enviromental. And it's very bad for children. Because the Battery is made from Cobolt. They call it Lithium Battery, it's actually made from Cobolt. And there are all these Nambian kids mining the Cobolt for that one. Which in my opinion, I think mining is a great profession. But let's leave it to the grown-ups. Not the precious precious children.
Florida, they're buying this Battery, one of the biggest. But, what about the children? All these children getting very sick, possibly dieing. And we don't see it, so we don't think about it. Amnesty is thinking about it. Very hard. They want us to feel very ashamed because of the little bit of Cobolt in our iPhones. While Florida is getting this huge & horrible Battery. That's going to have more Cobolt than you can shake a stick at. Thank you, Amnesty!
And by the way, Puerto Rico had a HUGE Battery. One of the first and this was before the Lithium was discovered. Also before solar was discovered. And it let them turn on their Generator at certain times, and other times they could turn it off, they'd be O.K. Because they had Battery. But look what happened in Puerto Rico. The hurricanes came. Maria and the other. And they had a big big blackout even before the hurricanes got there. Something that lasted for MONTHS. Until Whitefish Energy, of Montana fixed that for them. They had Battery, it did NOTHING for them when they needed electric so desperately. ZERO!!!