For GSS Energy Use chapter 5. Excerpt: ...Solar power is growing so
fast in California — with installations by customers increasing tenfold
since 2006 — that it is turning the state’s power system upside down.
In a twist that is being closely watched by power companies around the
country, California utilities will install massive banks of batteries
and other devices to store the power surplus created by solar panels in
the afternoon, when the sun’s rays are strong. The batteries are then to
begin discharging power into California’s electric grid in the early
evening, around sunset, when the solar generation of energy dies down
but demand rises as millions of people get home and turn on
air-conditioners, televisions and other electricity gobblers. The new
system is the opposite of an idea utilities have considered for years:
Use batteries to store power at night from traditional sources, like
natural gas and coal, and run them down in the peak heat of late
afternoon. ...At the end of October, the [California Public Utilities
Commission] ordered the utility companies it regulates to install some
form of energy storage equipment — exactly what was not specified — in
the first mandate of its kind in the country. A critical purpose of the
storage is to allow generators, which in California run largely on
natural gas, to keep operating in the late afternoon, when the output
from solar panels eliminates the need for their electricity.... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/24/business/energy-environment/catching-some-rays-in-california-and-storing-them.html. Matthew L. Wald, The New York Times. |
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