Batteries on the way to displace natural gas in California grid, is it??
Just to understand the size of it, some rough calculations based on Apr’24 energy consumption in California!!
Energy consumption around 520 GWh
— Nuclear + others, around 60 GWh
— Hydro, around 90 GWh
— Gas, around 100 GWh
— Wind, around 80 GWh
— Solar, around 100 GWh
— BESS, around 20 GWH (Charged using additional RE during solar hours)
— Imports, another 70 GWh
If we have to replace gas with RE + BESS, we are talking about 100 GWh to be additionally generated, roughly 20GWh to be generated and used during solar hours and 80 GWh BESS which will be charged during solar hours and discharged during non-solar hours.
To generate 100 GWh during solar hours you need at least 60 GW of additional generation capacity, considering a capacity factor of average 25% for solar and wind combination!!
So, in all what you need is 80GWh (say 40GW with 2 hours discharge) of BESS and 60 GW of RE.
To see in perspective,
— Additional RE, what you need is around “four times” of current peak RE (current max of Solar and wind at any time looks around 15 GW)
— Additional BESS, what you need is around “six to eight times” of what you have now (maximum BESS at any time is around 6-7 GW and 15 GWh in power and energy terms)
Add to this network needed (it may not always be unconstrained grid and there may be some curtailment), reliability reserves and extend this to days, weeks, months and years because solar, wind and hydro may not be like this every day, every week, every month and every year so add to adequacy requirements (either in terms of generation or load side resources) and you will get the full picture!! (operational complexities with further SNSP increase not considered!!)
PS: California already has some of the highest tariffs!!
Graphic credit: Grid status
#energytransition #BESS #batteryenergystoragesystem #renewableenergy #fossilgeneration #gridreliability #energyadequacy #electricitygrid #powersystem