Filling in the California Duck Curve

[Snagglefoot]

The California Duck Curve has a new feature. The traditional Duck Curve is Power Demand - solar power - wind power. The new feature is that the curve has gone negative and now copious amounts of power is generated to charge battery farms and dispense the power from the batteries into the grid as represented by the green sections. The battery farms are very expensive but they are displacing natural gas. For Tesla Investors, manufacturing battery storage units is the fastest growing portion of Tesla, with growth rates blowing away car manufacturing.

 

[thastinger]

That is a lot of conflict minerals.

Distributed grid could have worked in a construct where it was favorable to consumers with a couple of battery walls and panels on their houses but they chose to do the battery banks on the industrial scale and PV farms. Sad too because the infrastructure for a locally distributed grid already existed and would have been more efficient due to shorter transmission distances and the homeowner would have been paid for what they produced...but now, they power company makes money on every Kwh that a homeowner produces.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Might as well use that big reactor in the sky...

 

[bullwinkle]

That is a lot of conflict minerals.

Distributed grid could have worked in a construct where it was favorable to consumers with a couple of battery walls and panels on their houses but they chose to do the battery banks on the industrial scale and PV farms. Sad too because the infrastructure for a locally distributed grid already existed and would have been more efficient due to shorter transmission distances and the homeowner would have been paid for what they produced...but now, they power company makes money on every Kwh that a homeowner produces.

Sounds like the early adopters (like @JeffKeryk above) made out OK, later adopters kind of getting shafted a little(?) Solar farms are popping up everywhere east of here towards central OH, I’ve considered getting panels on the roof when I get it replaced (big, old, tall house, no shade from trees), but I would need a Powerwall or similar storage system with it-Duke Energy gets too much of my $$$ as is. They’re not getting green electricity free/cheap too!

 

[Snagglefoot]

Solar farms in places like Ohio are viable due to lower panel costs but the payout takes about 50% longer due to the lower solar insolation than in Southern California. Still, interesting it can be done.

 

[MVAR]

I'd have to dig for the paper but many battery storage facilities are not viable, without subsidies, under $600mWh. They're also receiving plenty of "assistance" from CAISO due to the state fighting for them during high LMP intervals. Meanwhile, hydro units get mitigated having bids "rebid" by CAISO for several intervals. CAISO has adjusted their market to accommodate battery storage.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...usg=AOvVaw2z4CiyilSC0e032ypRQ5kG&opi=89978449

 

[OVERKILL]

Keep in mind that April (the spring) is one of the lowest demand periods of the year. If we look at July, just 0.46% of electricity in CAISO was provided by battery storage:

 

[MVAR]

Keep in mind that April (the spring) is one of the lowest demand periods of the year. If we look at July, just 0.46% of electricity in CAISO was provided by battery storage:
View attachment 249436

Strange that your app has a question mark for pumped storage hydro. I dispatch a PGP and there's more than just mine in the system.

 

[OVERKILL]

Strange that your app has a question mark for pumped storage hydro. I dispatch a PGP and there's more than just mine in the system.

CAISO may not report it, ElectricityMaps only uses what's available.

 

[MVAR]

CAISO may not report it, ElectricityMaps only uses what's available.

Really strange. I have to make a distinction between pumping or generation when scheduling & CAISO makes the distinction in the awards as well. Doesn't surprise me one bit though either.

 

[mk378]

That is a lot of conflict minerals.

There is no mineral more conflicted than oil.

Electric cars that could return power to the grid or at least to the owner's house while parked would be useful here. The batteries already exist.

 

[ripcord]

There is no mineral more conflicted than oil.

Electric cars that could return power to the grid or at least to the owner's house while parked would be useful here. The batteries already exist.

No one wants to accelerate the degradation of their battery packs for minimal economic benefit.

 

[Snagglefoot]

Keep in mind that April (the spring) is one of the lowest demand periods of the year. If we look at July, just 0.46% of electricity in CAISO was provided by battery storage:
View attachment 249436

Yes, I think that works out. If you pull numbers off the chart in posting #1, the green area near the beginning of the evening represents about 5 GW for about 4 hours, or 20 GWh which is 0.2 TWh out of a demand of 20 TWh for the day, or about 1% of the total.

In the summer, the AC load kicks in and the totals are boosted by stronger solar output but also the gas plants which kick in with power ( 14% of which comes from the TC pipeline which crosses the border south of Cranbrook. ). Then the “ green section” would be only 0.5%, but mostly because it’s only for 4 hours out of a 24 hour day of high electrical output.

The growth in solar output and the acceptance of California to build high priced battery farms will increase the green area at the end of the day, and the morning of the next day. Theoretically this can expand to the point that no more natural gas will be required for power generation.

 

[Snagglefoot]

What’s missing in the curve in posting #1 is the area between the red line and the green filled area. That white area is the amount of imported power, much of it from British Columbia in Canada and the Pacific Northwest. Much if this power is transmitted on the Pacific Northwest Intertie. Here’s a couple of screen shots.

 

[ripcord]

I'm skeptical. Not only is California losing population due to outflow, a lot of those flowing the state are upper income.

California isn't in such dire straights as Illinois, but you can't build grid scale battery storage with wishful thinking and a 68 billion dollar deficit.

 

[Snagglefoot]

I'm skeptical. Not only is California losing population due to outflow, a lot of those flowing the state are upper income.

California isn't in such dire straights as Illinois, but you can't build grid scale battery storage with wishful thinking and a 68 billion dollar deficit.

Here is the plot of the population. It will be interesting to see how this goes. They still have a $ 4 Trillion GDP so not sure if this will keep them off their agenda. Time will tell. Their conversion to solar has so far been extraordinary.

 

[MVAR]

Here is the plot of the population. It will be interesting to see how this goes. They still have a $ 4 Trillion GDP so not sure if this will keep them off their agenda. Time will tell. Their conversion to solar has so far been extraordinary.

View attachment 249558

And that PV transition was too forced too fast. It's created enough reliability issues that NERC has issued several IBR (inverter based resource) papers & warnings. Voltage control has become a severe issue and IBR's have been "slapped" in place with several incorrect relay settings. One of these just a couple years ago in SoCal had the potential to cascade an outage all the way into Canada & encompass the majority of WECC.

 

[wpod]

I'm skeptical. Not only is California losing population due to outflow, a lot of those flowing the state are upper income.

California isn't in such dire straights as Illinois, but you can't build grid scale battery storage with wishful thinking and a 68 billion dollar deficit.

Taxpayers income is free money for the politicians and government employed

 

[OVERKILL]

Yes, I think that works out. If you pull numbers off the chart in posting #1, the green area near the beginning of the evening represents about 5 GW for about 4 hours, or 20 GWh which is 0.2 TWh out of a demand of 20 TWh for the day, or about 1% of the total.

I think you mean GWh, lol. 20TWh is roughly what they use in a month (245TWh/year). 20GWh is 0.02TWh.

Looking at the ElectricityMaps data, what's more interesting is what is charging the batteries.

2PM, battery is charging (one might assume solar, but they are running 5.18GW of gas so that's not clear), by 3PM, battery is no longer charging. 4PM battery is discharging at 3.3GW, 5PM, 4.91GW, 6PM, 4.06GW, 7PM, 3.16GW, 8PM, 2.59GW, 9PM, 1.72GW, 10PM, gone.

That puts us at 19.74GWh discharge, which is pretty close to your 20GWh.

11PM, battery is charging (and they are running 8.69GW of gas and there's clearly no sun), and this continues on (currently most recent timeslot is 2AM in Cali, battery is still charging with gas, since gas is on the margin).

So, what emissions reduction is a battery being charged with gas providing?

Even on a rather mild (low demand) fall day, 41% of their electricity came from gas, 192GWh. So they'd need 10x the battery capacity they have currently (and enough solar to charge it, solar generated 106GWh, total demand was 468GWh, wind provided a whopping 29.2GWh) to displace gas.

Assuming a super low price of even $400,000/MWh (it's more like $600,000 currently), that's $76.8 billion in batteries. They could basically build Vogtle twice for that money.

 

[oil pan 4]

That is a lot of conflict minerals.

Distributed grid could have worked in a construct where it was favorable to consumers with a couple of battery walls and panels on their houses but they chose to do the battery banks on the industrial scale and PV farms. Sad too because the infrastructure for a locally distributed grid already existed and would have been more efficient due to shorter transmission distances and the homeowner would have been paid for what they produced...but now, they power company makes money on every Kwh that a homeowner produces.

Yep power companies love solar power so long as they own it.