Increasing Battery Storage Capacity
The Art
The Science
“California draws more electricity from the sun than any other state. It also has a timing problem: Solar power is plentiful during the day but disappears by evening, just as people get home from work and electricity demand spikes. To fill the gap, power companies typically burn more fossil fuels like natural gas.
That’s now changing. Since 2020, California has installed more giant batteries than anywhere in the world apart from China. They can soak up excess solar power during the day and store it for use when it gets dark.
Those batteries play a pivotal role in California’s electric grid, partially replacing fossil fuels in the evening. Between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. on April 30, for example, batteries supplied more than one-fifth of California’s electricity and, for a few minutes, pumped out 7,046 megawatts of electricity, akin to the output from seven large nuclear reactors.
Across the country, power companies are increasingly using giant batteries the size of shipping containers to address renewable energy’s biggest weakness: the fact that the wind and sun aren’t always available.
“What’s happening in California is a glimpse of what could happen to other grids in the future,” said Helen Kou, head of U.S. power analysis at BloombergNEF, a research firm. “Batteries are quickly moving from these niche applications to shifting large amounts of renewable energy toward peak demand periods.”
Over the past three years, battery storage capacity on the nation’s grids has grown tenfold, to 16,000 megawatts. This year, it is expected to nearly double again, with the biggest growth in Texas, California and Arizona.”
Giant Batteries Are Transforming the Way the U.S. Uses Electricity
They’re delivering solar power after dark in California and helping to stabilize grids in other states. And the technology is expanding rapidly.
By Brad Plumer and Nadja Popovich, New York Times, May 7, 2024,Giant Batteries Are Transforming the Way the U.S. Uses Electricity
The art is based on the right panel of the figure.
