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Title: No Rolling Power Outages for California Since 2020 - Thanks to 17,000
MW of New Battery Storage

Link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/09/14/04462...

"Californians just made it through the hottest August on record without
having to endure any rolling power outages," reports the Los Angeles Times.
In fact, the state hasn't implemented rotating power outages since 2020.
Because "Over the last few years, California has quietly but dramatically
increased the resiliency of its electrical grid through a significant
expansion in battery energy storage." These batteries hold onto solar energy
captured during the day, so it can be sent to the grid as demand peaks in the
evening and morning, when most people are at home running air conditioners
and other appliances. During the August heat wave of 2020, the California
Independent System Operator, which manages the flow of electricity for most
of the state, declared a Stage 3 Emergency and hundreds of thousands of
households lost power in rolling outages. At the time, the system had less
than 100 megawatts of battery storage available, according to system
spokesperson Jayme Ackemann. Today, it has more than 17,000 megawatts
available.... According to Ackemann, the system seeks to add 20,000 to 25,000
megawatts of battery storage capacity by 2045 - the same year it has set a
goal of achieving carbon neutrality. That means the state would remove as
many carbon emissions from the atmosphere as it emits. In recent years,
California has steadily grown the share of electrical power generated by
renewable sources - such as solar, wind, geothermal and hydropower - which
bolstered the resiliency of the grid by increasing the overall amount of
energy available. An uptick in people installing rooftop solar panels has
provided an additional power boost, Ackemann said. In May, California became
the first known large-scale power system in the world to have relied on more
than 50% solar power for an entire month.... California's grid is also now
integrated with electrical systems across much of the Western United States.
This means that if there is an extreme heat event in Southern California,
energy from a cooler area such as the Pacific Northwest can be imported to
help meet regional demand. All of this has collectively helped the state's
electrical system weather this year's long-lasting heat. "Southern California
continued to break temperature records this week when Long Beach and Anaheim
reached a blistering 107 degrees and Escondido hit 112 degrees..."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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