David HoWe now have a battery with 565 megawatt-hours of storage on Oahu in Hawaiʻi, which replaces the coal fire power plant they shut down a couple of years ago.
ToroidalCore@davidho They're using it to supply inertia too, which is pretty neat. That capability will be more and more important with more renewables.
The Turtle@davidho tourists will eat it all. "Oh, I forgot my cord in Texas, my iPhone is at 1%!!!!!!!"
Go back to Texas, Karen.
Rik D'huyvetters@davidho how can a battery replace a powerplant?
Darrin West@Rik_Dhuyvetters @davidho Often, smaller power plants are used as “peaker” plants. Brought online to deal with peak demand each evening. Given the old one was coal, and that would be expensive to ship in, I’d imagine that was the only thing the coal plant was used for. The battery plant would be recharged at night when demand is lowest.
@obviousdwest @davidho not sure if this is the case since the coal powerplant was already decommissioned years ago according to the article. But maybe.
Shortman@Rik_Dhuyvetters @davidho whennyou dont need additional production but a skip to another daytime, it works.
Humble Fan of Atty. Wooread the article, but at what cost was the battery system?
TC Won't Give In To Lies@davidho
A wonderful answer to the naysayers who complain " #GreenEnergy can't provide a stable grid" 👍
Space Hobo@davidho How are they doing at cleaning up the diesel in the water table, over there?
@davidho Partly asking because my mother-in-law lives in Mānoa Valley, and my daughter is taking a friend there this summer...
@spacehobo Not great. This will be a problem for Oahu in the years to come.
John Stonier@davidho this is an excellent example of how the #electricutility grid is evolving from central energy suppliers to centralized energy managers.
Every business and household should participate in rooftop solar and have their own battery backup ( through a #homebattery, and their #electricvehicles adding significant energy storage for a home )
The grid becomes the central energy buffer. And everyone uses less net energy, and becomes more self reliant during outages.
carbon offsets are BS ☕️🥬@FullOnElectric @davidho I generally agree but batteries are tough for households right now because of cost.
When I did my installation in Tx I included a battery for resiliency but it certainly was not beneficial financially. It only extended the break even date.
quixote@FullOnElectric @davidho I wish they'd hurry up. Back in the Stone Ages we called that wheeling energy as opposed to delivering it. And the utilities have been fighting the idea ever since. They've been needing a kick in the pants by enlightened government to get things going.
But enlightenment is in short supply.
Hopefully, tech is overtaking the dinosaurs and it'll happen soon.
@quixote @davidho tech already has, but the average SFH homeowner and strata/condo owner’s who must agree to act, do not have the excess cash to invest in these technologies.
But the investment pays off in many jurisdictions, and pay back better than term deposits. The projects each need to be costed, include available incentives, and project future returns.
Mastodon MigrationThis is great. If California PG&E were operating like a proper PUBLIC utility, they would be installing such grid batteries all over the place and encouraging home and megawatt scale solar farms. Instead it is actively disincentivizing small scale solar as if local generation is their competition.
Adrian Cockcroft@mastodonmigration @davidho FYI The Moss Landing PG&E Megapack installation is bigger than the one on Oahu. However I agree that in general utilities across the US haven’t been as supportive of solar generation as they could have been. Partly it’s the way they are setup and funded.