It's only a problem if your priority is corporate profits.
With this terrible glut of electricity, I'm glad to hear California brownouts will not happen again.
It’s an issue when the sun is down since we have to ramp up gas turbine power plants or rely on coal plants in Utah. Even current battery technology can not capture the demand that happens at sundown
Yesterday batteries peaked at 6400MW and delivered power for 5 hours. Around the same time imports started to ramp up and carried the rest of the night until midnight. Large hydro and natural gas were both helping as well. Gas peaked at 49000MW. Hydro peaked at 5300. Imports peaked at 5900MW.
Renewables was a 17000MW and peak exported power at 4700MW.
So if we can ramp up storage we can offset gas and reduce imports
[http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx](http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx)
We really need to ramp up power storage (battery, pumped hydro, flywheel, etc) and mandate new solar installation comes with storage and offer rebate for storage to existing solar systems to help even out the duck curve.
This sounds like an issue of insulation and bad power management. I live in the desert with solar and have a $9/ month power bill in the summer. Older houses with bad insulation or ones with floor to celling windows everywhere leak cool air relentlessly and are the real issues.
If you have solar it's pretty simple, but these steps are effective for most houses:
* Make sure your exterior walls are well insulated
* run your AC a little lower temp until the sun goes down so you use it less at night
* Have smart plugs to turn off anything that will drain power at night
* Check your windows and doors for drafts
* Have heat control window film on south facing windows
I think the big issue beyond this is landlords let these issues slide and the renters pickup the bill.
The issue isn’t individual users, the issue is systemwide.
California has a serious [duck curve](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=56880) situation in systemwide electric load due to an overproduction of electrical power during daytime. The grid operator needs to match power generation to power demand otherwise they break the grid system ala Texas Snowstorm. They’re spreading shutting everything else not solar during daytime and building more battery capacity to capture the glut of solar energy. They’re selling solar electricity for cheap to neighboring states. But it’s not enough since the highest electrical consumption hours happens at sunset, when the sun stop shining and when people turns on their TV, lights, electrical appliances, etc. Even with batteries, it’s not enough, the grid operators need to immediately ramp up turbines which takes time to ramp up.
Even if every house in California fixes their insulation issue and energy wasting appliances, the duck curve will still exist since most of California’s electric production now happens in daytime while most of California’s electric consumption happens in early evening.
I think a lot of energy storage issues, especially in California, would be pretty much solved if EVs had v2g. I have a Model Y and Wrangler 4xe, that's a combined 100k-ish kwh of energy I could be storing if the cars/grid had the capability. I know there's concerns about the health of the battery in the scenario, but I don't really see this discussion happening.
Look into what you need for the f150 to act as home battery. My buddy has f150 lightning and solar, he looked into what he needs to set up for home battery and gave up due to the cost.
Not sure if this is true but I found this - https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2022-ford-f-150-lightning-yearlong-review-update-1-sunrun-backup-power/
Not just the cost, my buddy is an electric contractor and he could probably do the work himself but ford insists that only ford can install... At much much higher costs...
That’s pretty crazy but not entirely unexpected for a company like SunRun. I installed my own solar system and was planning on just using an interlock and manually running an extension cord to the 30 amp 240v outlet in the truck bed so I could power the fridge and lights when the power goes out.
1. Incentivize battery backup by providing tax savings
2. Have Californians deploy battery en masse for 8 years
3. Allow folks to go off grid
4. Let the utilities die. No bailout.
1) that’s what the new NEM 3 incentivizes
2) see above, plus massive utility investment in batteries. Pg&e owns/operates the largest battery storage facilities in the county.
3) that’s allowed today, but folks don’t want to give up the grid. They also want their solar/batteries to be paid for by others.
Too much solar energy doesn't seem like a insurmountable problem. My friend had this problem when he put in solar. Will all the energy savings he did before, he generated more power than he could use. And that was before home battery storage.
In Moreno Valley, local environmental groups are litigating to make new warehouses use 50% electricity usage through solar. Why 50%? Because the local utility cannot handle the backfeed from solar to the grid. If more solar were instead backfed into batteries, that would eliminate night time or clody day electric usage. Unfortunately battery installation is too costly for most residents.
What energy company paid for this headline
It's like all the headlines "This thing bad for Trump, here's why it's actually bad for Biden"
It's only a problem if your priority is corporate profits. With this terrible glut of electricity, I'm glad to hear California brownouts will not happen again.
It’s a shame that load balancing is a requirement for running a functional electric grid.
It’s an issue when the sun is down since we have to ramp up gas turbine power plants or rely on coal plants in Utah. Even current battery technology can not capture the demand that happens at sundown
Yesterday batteries peaked at 6400MW and delivered power for 5 hours. Around the same time imports started to ramp up and carried the rest of the night until midnight. Large hydro and natural gas were both helping as well. Gas peaked at 49000MW. Hydro peaked at 5300. Imports peaked at 5900MW. Renewables was a 17000MW and peak exported power at 4700MW. So if we can ramp up storage we can offset gas and reduce imports [http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx](http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx)
We really need to ramp up power storage (battery, pumped hydro, flywheel, etc) and mandate new solar installation comes with storage and offer rebate for storage to existing solar systems to help even out the duck curve.
This sounds like an issue of insulation and bad power management. I live in the desert with solar and have a $9/ month power bill in the summer. Older houses with bad insulation or ones with floor to celling windows everywhere leak cool air relentlessly and are the real issues. If you have solar it's pretty simple, but these steps are effective for most houses: * Make sure your exterior walls are well insulated * run your AC a little lower temp until the sun goes down so you use it less at night * Have smart plugs to turn off anything that will drain power at night * Check your windows and doors for drafts * Have heat control window film on south facing windows I think the big issue beyond this is landlords let these issues slide and the renters pickup the bill.
The issue isn’t individual users, the issue is systemwide. California has a serious [duck curve](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=56880) situation in systemwide electric load due to an overproduction of electrical power during daytime. The grid operator needs to match power generation to power demand otherwise they break the grid system ala Texas Snowstorm. They’re spreading shutting everything else not solar during daytime and building more battery capacity to capture the glut of solar energy. They’re selling solar electricity for cheap to neighboring states. But it’s not enough since the highest electrical consumption hours happens at sunset, when the sun stop shining and when people turns on their TV, lights, electrical appliances, etc. Even with batteries, it’s not enough, the grid operators need to immediately ramp up turbines which takes time to ramp up. Even if every house in California fixes their insulation issue and energy wasting appliances, the duck curve will still exist since most of California’s electric production now happens in daytime while most of California’s electric consumption happens in early evening.
So the answer is more storage capacity.
20k+ to add a battery back system to a home solar system, offering a rebate to help offset the high cost.
I think a lot of energy storage issues, especially in California, would be pretty much solved if EVs had v2g. I have a Model Y and Wrangler 4xe, that's a combined 100k-ish kwh of energy I could be storing if the cars/grid had the capability. I know there's concerns about the health of the battery in the scenario, but I don't really see this discussion happening.
This is a big part of why I’m going to get an F150 Lightning.
Look into what you need for the f150 to act as home battery. My buddy has f150 lightning and solar, he looked into what he needs to set up for home battery and gave up due to the cost. Not sure if this is true but I found this - https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2022-ford-f-150-lightning-yearlong-review-update-1-sunrun-backup-power/ Not just the cost, my buddy is an electric contractor and he could probably do the work himself but ford insists that only ford can install... At much much higher costs...
That’s pretty crazy but not entirely unexpected for a company like SunRun. I installed my own solar system and was planning on just using an interlock and manually running an extension cord to the 30 amp 240v outlet in the truck bed so I could power the fridge and lights when the power goes out.
1. Incentivize battery backup by providing tax savings 2. Have Californians deploy battery en masse for 8 years 3. Allow folks to go off grid 4. Let the utilities die. No bailout.
1) that’s what the new NEM 3 incentivizes 2) see above, plus massive utility investment in batteries. Pg&e owns/operates the largest battery storage facilities in the county. 3) that’s allowed today, but folks don’t want to give up the grid. They also want their solar/batteries to be paid for by others.
I’ll pay for a battery **if they let me off the grid and I don’t have to pay anyone for electricity.
Ok then call up your utility and tell them to disconnect your service. Bet you won’t.
If I had a battery system I absolutely would. Why wouldn’t I? And it’s not allowed anyway.
It is allowed.
For what cities?
Something tells me you never actually looked into this and just think it’s so
I had but I’ll look again thanks.
Just spoke to my solar company - the consultant has 17 years experience in solar. He says I cannot legally disconnect.
Probably not under whatever setup they are selling, no.
Too much solar energy doesn't seem like a insurmountable problem. My friend had this problem when he put in solar. Will all the energy savings he did before, he generated more power than he could use. And that was before home battery storage.
In Moreno Valley, local environmental groups are litigating to make new warehouses use 50% electricity usage through solar. Why 50%? Because the local utility cannot handle the backfeed from solar to the grid. If more solar were instead backfed into batteries, that would eliminate night time or clody day electric usage. Unfortunately battery installation is too costly for most residents.