Batteries + solar = grid stability

Note exponential curve.
Also, excludes household storage

From This is Not Cool (formerly ClimateCrocks)

Denton Record Chronicle (Texas):

With temperatures climbing over 100 [F; 38 C]  in much of the state, the Texas electric grid set an all-time record for energy demand Tuesday.

Despite the heat wave, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas has yet to ask people to conserve electricity. That’s a big change from 2023, when extreme weather and fear of low power reserves prompted ERCOT to issue 11 requests for conservation through the year.

Grid operators and energy experts are pointing to the rapid growth of solar power and grid-scale batteries as key reasons why residents haven’t been asked to conserve this month.

“We’ve seen significant additions of energy storage resources, solar resources and wind resources, with a few additions also on the gas side,” Pablo Vegas, CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, said at an ERCOT board meeting Tuesday. “All of that has helped to contribute to less scarcity conditions.”

In fact, the growth of some of those energy sources has been downright record-breaking.

As the sun and heat bore down, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday brought the top three days for solar power production in the history of the state grid, according to the website Gridstatus.io, which tracks the performance of regional electricity transmission systems.

On Sunday, the top day for solar production, Texas solar farms produced 20,832 megawatts of power. It’s worth noting that this number does not include energy produced by rooftop panels on homes and businesses.

According to ERCOT, 1 megawatt is enough to power about 250 homes at times of peak demand.

Texas also set new records Monday and Tuesday for the amount of power provided by big utility-scale batteries, something that could have made the difference between a normal day and a grid emergency.

“The previous storage record was shattered by 25%,” Doug Lewin, author of The Texas Energy and Power Newsletter, tweeted. We “almost certainly would have been rolling outages without it.”

The reason for the rapid uptick in solar and battery power on the state grid is pretty simple.

Energy demand has grown rapidly in Texas over the last few years, and frequent moments of energy scarcity have presented a business opportunity for solar farms and battery storage facilities that can quickly set up shop to fill the need.

Hot, sunny days — the very conditions that bring higher energy use — are also the conditions that produce solar power. That solar energy also can be used to fill large batteries that discharge power back to the grid when the sun sets over solar farms, but air conditioners are still running full blast.

San Jose Mercury News:

 

Four years ago this week, California’s power grid was so strained by a heat wave that rolling blackouts hit hundreds of thousands of residents over two days. It nearly happened again two years ago, when state officials issued 11 “flex alerts” asking businesses and homeowners to voluntarily reduce electricity use to avoid power disruptions.

But this year when a record heat wave scorched the state over three weeks from mid-June to July — sending temperatures across the Bay Area and the Central Valley soaring over 110 degrees — there was plenty of power. No warnings. No shortages. No flex alerts.

A big part of the reason, experts say, is a boom in the construction of giant battery projects.

California’s high-tech battery centers built with thousands of lithium-ion batteries similar to the batteries in cell phones and electric cars are solving the main shortcoming of the push for more renewable energy: the fact that the sun doesn’t shine at night.

Battery storage has increased sevenfold in the past five years in California, from 1,474 megawatts in 2020 to 10,383 megawatts now. A megawatt is enough electricity to run 750 homes.

Before, when the sun went down every summer evening, giant solar farms stopped producing electricity, sometimes leading to power shortages statewide in the early evening. Now, the growing number of battery storage plants across the state can store that solar power during the day when it is plentiful. The battery storage plants then release it back to the power grid in the evening as the sun goes down but hot weather keeps electricity demand high because millions of Californians are running air conditioners.

“Think of it like an energy bank account,” said Elliott Mainzer, president and CEO of California Independent System Operator, an agency in Folsom that manages the state’s power grid. “In the middle of the day, you are making big deposits. At the end of the day, we withdraw from that account.”