by neonate on 5/7/24, 3:56 PM
by standeven on 5/7/24, 4:39 PM
The age of solar + storage is here. It’s the least expensive option to add power to the grid today, and prices are still dropping while efficiencies are increasing.
by liampulles on 5/7/24, 5:20 PM
Private home and business solar is big business in South Africa these days. As unreliable as solar is, its more predictable than our national grid, and increasingly cheap. There are also a few options to roll a house solar conversion into your mortgage, which makes it a lot more feasible for middle class people and up.
I'm considering adding solar to my existing inverter/battery setup.
by corradio on 5/7/24, 5:06 PM
by crackercrews on 5/7/24, 4:11 PM
Doesn't California pay way more for energy than other states? Not sure it makes sense to look at what they're doing and call it the future. It would be nice if it were free but the cost is something like double neighboring states.
by foota on 5/7/24, 4:26 PM
The tiny spike in battery at 12am is interesting. DC power for things running at midnight?
by oliwarner on 5/7/24, 7:26 PM
In the UK we have at least one company buying and selling electricity in 30 minute window rates. These windows are published 8 hours ahead based on predicted generation.
With a battery and minimal software, you can buy low, sell high, keep enough for yourself, factor in EV charging, solar generation, etc etc.
Battery pays for itself in 5 years, and with enough takers, the grid gets superb smoothing, delaying the need for central infra upgrades.
by eximius on 5/7/24, 5:36 PM
Does anyone know how to find good solar contractors? Every time I seem to search for professionals I find a bunch of blogs about superficial details about solar installations instead of someone to actually install a system.
by ZeroGravitas on 5/7/24, 6:41 PM
by joshuamcginnis on 5/7/24, 4:48 PM
There is a company[0] here in rural Virginia buying up huge swaths of land (100-500+ acres) and filling them up with solar panels. From an energy perspective, it's wonderful. On the other hand, it is quite literally changing the views of our precious Blue Ridge Mountains from hills and mountains with seas of green pasture to rows of solar panels as far as the eye can see.
0. https://energix-group.com/
by jebarker on 5/7/24, 4:53 PM
I am about to get battery backup and solar installed in an already electrified house. Seems like the best thing I can currently do to reduce my carbon footprint. However, I can't help wonder if I should be worried about the finite resources used to create the batteries and the impact of the waste created when the batteries reach their end of life. Is this a sustainable model for energy storage?
by pyrale on 5/7/24, 6:51 PM
This is a very significant change!
I'd be interested in seeing an estimate of the battery costs to the grid, and also next winter's data. but if battery costs and material requirements are reasonable, and this deployment is not the result of an overinvestment in renewables, this is probably the first significant example of renewables getting a reasonable deployment plan.
by sharpshadow on 5/7/24, 8:28 PM
“Most batteries still come from China” and that’s a big issue in regard with the ongoing trade war and future war. At least for lithium.
That’s why it’s a strategic plus to go for electric vehicles build upon lithium to have a certain amount available locally for the recycling process.
by riffic on 5/7/24, 4:17 PM
kinetic to potential energy storage (like hydroelectric pumped storage) is rad too.
by jarbus on 5/7/24, 11:51 PM
Are these sodium ion batteries or regular lithium ion? I’m excited to see how these numbers change once sodium ion becomes mainstream
by syngrog66 on 5/7/24, 7:01 PM
There is an "American" on-site battery backup startup (for residences & biz) which AFAIK plans to use Chinese hardware and Russian software.
If I have to explain the natsec implications and dangers of that... Let's just say its "unwise" at best, and suspicious at worst.
They pitched me and tried to recruit me.
I turned them down, in part for that and for other anti-patterns they demonstrated.
by wojciem on 5/7/24, 7:10 PM
Interestingly, from the provided charts the energy consumption decreased between 2024 and 2021.
by bcatanzaro on 5/7/24, 4:17 PM
Of all the non-metric units in use today, watt-hours has to be the worst. It causes so much confusion. A Pulitzer Prize winning institution reporting on our climate and energy crisis can’t get it right:
“Over the past three years, battery storage capacity on the nation’s grids has grown tenfold, to 16,000 megawatts.”
Gigajoules were right there!
by johnea on 5/7/24, 8:28 PM
So, is this really an engineering community?
"battery storage capacity on the nation’s grids has grown tenfold, to 16,000 megawatts"
"California now has 10,000 megawatts of battery capacity on the grid"
After reading all of the comments below, i only find tangential reference to the fact that MW (or any kind of Watts) is not a measure of capacity. Even the tangential comment, that MWh is not MKS, doesn't highlight that the article never mentions MWh, everything is described in terms of MW, which is obviously power, not energy.
It seems even the referenced state reports make the same error:
https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...
And the governor's office:
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/04/25/california-achieves-major-...
As an actual lefty (not a woke-nut (or a wing-nut)) I'm not a fan of Gov Gavin. But the article wasn't really political, whereas the overwhelming majority of comments here are.
It doesn't shine a favorable light on the HN community in terms of being technically focused...
by aiauthoritydev on 5/7/24, 6:04 PM
Does anyone know what happens to the car batteries once they are old ? Is it more economical to recycle them or sell them for home energy storage ?
by dukeofdoom on 5/7/24, 4:37 PM
Yeah making it way more expensive and causing inflation. Yesterday my local grocery had a $29 bag of coffee on clearance... regular $39. If this continues it will transform politics as well.