Michael Knudsen
Tony “Abolish ICE” Arcieri🌹🦀California is "bending the duck curve" with batteries:
Grid batteries reach stunning new peak of 44 pct of evening demand in world’s fourth biggest economy
Kevin RussellLook at it!! LOOK!
tasket@bascule Also, on some days batteries becoming largest single source in the pre-dawn/dawn hours:
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/02/18/california-batteries-sustain-near-24-hour-solar-run/
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/02/18/california-batteries-sustain-near-24-hour-solar-run/
California batteries sustain near 24-hour solar run
On Feb. 1, California’s batteries bridged the solar gap with seamless precision. After discharging through the night until sunrise, they spent the daylight hours charging, then pivoted back to exporting power well past midnight – effectively sustaining the state on solar energy for a full 24-hour cycle.
Linus Gasser@bascule can we make a website everybody needs to visit before using words like "capacity" and "power"?
Or do I need to accept that capacity now is measured in watts?
@ligasser nobody is misusing words here. The word “power” doesn’t even appear in my post or the article. It’s talking about instantaneous supply and demand which are appropriately measured in watts.
Are you getting nuke bro brain?
@ligasser seriously though, who looks at an exciting article like that and has something negative to say? I know, nuke bros, because sour grapes
> More than 90 per cent of California’s battery fleet has been built in the last five years, lifting total capacity to more than 17 GW from just 1.3 GW in 2020, according to Ember analyst Nicolas Fulghum.
Anyway, definitely no nuke bro here. Just a smartass with some solar panels on top of his roof and who calculates twice a year if batteries are finally worth it... So I prefer my capacity in Jules and not watts :)
@ligasser the capacity is actually the important figure here for evening generation, because it's what's required to meet evening demand.
It's the y-axis on that chart.
@bascule OK, it's nitpicking. But in order to correctly compare comparable values, I think we should get used to follow a common way of defining what is happening:
- Power, [W], as the instantaneous delivery, like litre/s for a waterhose
- Capacity, Energy, [Ws], [Wh], [Jules], as the reserve in the system, like litres of water
Both are important - one to fulfil the instantaneous need, one to hold to it as long as possible. And I hope both will increase so we can ditch non-renewables!
Poul-Henning KampAnd for reference: The batteries peak power delivery corresponds to that of seven EPR-II nuclear reactors.
... which would take 20-30 years to build.
talpa
Fazal Majid@bascule Why do you think the fossil-fuel industry and their sock-puppet Trump is so worried they paid Total Energies a $1B bribe to not build a windfarm?
Thomas Enebo ✅@bascule This reminds me of a NREL report years ago saying we (US) could reach 93% renewables for power delivery for like 3T$ involving quite a few grid upgrades. That was a while ago and prices on renewables keep going down. It added the dimension of shifting wind power around at night but battery tech is really turning the corner. We just need politcal will 🙁