SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 01 2019, @08:36AM
And how much does it cost?