California: ENRON then, renewables today

It's a good problem to have. I suspect this is the true reason why the big utilities in California are wanting to get into the public EV charging business. They want to get tens of thousands of charging stations installed at workplaces and shopping areas in order to absorb all of the growing daytime solar output. I think we will start to see daytime time-of-use rates that are off-peak during the day in addition to overnight.

Bring. It. On.

 

There goes all the gloom & doom'ers claiming too many Chademo & Supercharger stations will cause the grid to collapse. In another vein, we have Tesla's power-wall manufacturing ramping up for storing our new excess. Talk about great timing . . . .

.

 

Last I heard CA is expecting possible brownouts this summer due to lack of nat gas for power, due to the nat gas leak incident outside LA.

 

Really, things like this demonstrate why grid storage is so necessary nowadays.

It's also worth noting that grid storage isn't just in batteries. Thermal storage can be an incredibly cheap way to get a form of storage (by time-shifting demand) onto the grid. Although it's not scaled down to residential scale yet, commercial buildings are already using ice generation AC systems to shift load to off-peak times. And, then, there's hot water storage - while tankless hot water heaters are more efficient in terms of watt-hours of electricity per gallon delivered, a large, well-insulated tank water heater can reduce overall carbon footprint of the grid by using renewables to heat the water when they're available, and storing the hot water for later, to avoid using inefficient fossil-fueled peaker plants.

 

For electrics, tankless water heaters are terribly INefficient compared to heat pump water heaters. Especially so in warm climates such as SoCal. Unless one requires a sustained high delivery rate or 'endless' hot water, or lives near the Arctic Circle, skip the tankless and go direct to a HPWH.

 

You have to be careful of what you believe. I too, saw an article to that effect, and remain unconvinced. Utilities use public relations to meet long term goals and do not like to "waste" potential crises. At some point, I believe, stationary power will become nearly free in sunny areas, sans the cost of the infrastructure. We just need a break through.

 

Ice storage and Chilled water storage can both store off peak cooling and used in locations with high electrical demand charges and/or large differentials in time of day energy rates.

Other approaches to dealing with short term peaks at the building level include absorption chillers or use of emergency generators. If you need emergency power or cooling anyway, this is an economical way to deal with peaks and provided the time of operation is short, the energy cost and environmental impact is relatively small.