Giant Tesla Battery Project Now Proposed For Silicon Valley (digitaltrends.com)

Digital Trends reports: Tesla's largest-ever Powerpack installation may be coming to Northern California. Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) applied to the California Public Utilities Commission for approval for a utility-owned 182.5 MW energy storage farm using Tesla Powerpacks at the company's energy storage site in Moss Landing... The Tesla project, however, would have an expansion capacity of 1.1 GW. The storage projects' purpose is to help keep electrical power levels even for PG&E customers. The storage facilities would feed power to the grid when consumption exceeds normal levels and during blackouts or other service interruptions.
Tesla's giant battery in Australia has already reduced grid service costs by 90%.

And speaking of power sources, long-time Slasdot reader judgecorp writes: A disused Stanley Black & Decker factory in New Britain, Hartford County.CT, will get a 20MW micro-grid powered by fuel cells, according to the first phase of a plan unveiled by the State Governor. It's a big deal because it will be the largest indoor micro-grid in the world, and will help provide a reliable power source for a data center in the old factory. Along with the other phases of the project, Governor Dannel Malloy hopes the deal will provide 3,000 jobs and lots of tax revenue.

Comments

Units!

[Roger W Moore]

When it comes to energy storage the usual number to quote is how much energy it stores. The rate you can drain energy from it, while not irrelevant, doesn't tell you much because it provides no idea of how long it can provide that power for: a few seconds to cope with surges, an hour or two while they start up a power station or 12+ hours to smooth out e.g. solar power.

Since the article appears to confuse MW with MWh at one point I suspect that this is yet another example of journalists not understanding the difference between power and energy.

Re: When all you have is a hammer

[WindBourne]

so many lies there.
1) we have a 2013 Tesla (i.e. 5 years old), and we are still at 95% load. Basically the same as what it was at 5K miles. According to others, it will remain above 85% clear until 300K miles. All of that is a little bit longer than 3-5 years.
2) Tesla is already recycling their own batteries.
3) Hydro does not work well without water. And considering that CA is being hit by longer and longer droughts, and many of the reservoirs are still down, means a number of hydrodams are about to no longer work.
4) Energy storage spread around on a macrogrid, makes it possible for utilities to buffer their networks, handle varying demands and supplies, and deal with downtimes on the grids.
5) If CA was smart, they would add a number of nuclear SMRs around the state to provide various capabilities.