Comment on The biggest solar-plus-storage project in the US just came online
hotair@slrpnk.net 5 months ago
That’s nice and makes a dent. 18,248,000 MWh/year so 49,994MWh per day. The batteries at this site are 3,287MWh, so they can store about 6.5% of the average daily Californian use. 875 megawatts peak power for maybe 5h per day is 437MWh almost 10% of CA consumption. And it’s highest in summer, when the ACs are running, so that’s nice. Please check my math!
jadero@slrpnk.net 5 months ago
Assuming your math is right, a different way of imagining this is that 20 of these wipe out all other power generation systems with enough overproduction to power desalination and/or carbon capture from the atmosphere.
I know that there are currently problems with both of those systems, but at least carbon capture is going to have to be sorted out once we have excess capacity. Otherwise, whatever climate we’ve created will remain for hundreds, maybe thousands of years.
Of course, one slight problem is that this would need to be replicated worldwide.
lefaucet@slrpnk.net 5 months ago
Excellent points all around! The more it’s done the easier and cheaper it becomes
Gotta start where we are, so the solution to the problems you mention is to just keep going until a better solution arises.
Anticorp@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Is there enough available, usable land in California for 20 of these?
lefaucet@slrpnk.net 5 months ago
I’m sure there is. It also looks like solar and agriculture can be mutually beneficial, though I’ve yet to see any large scale projects doing it.
shalafi@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Wish I could find an easy way to show 4,600 acres overlaid on a California map.
You could get 6.5 of these in an area the size of San Franciso (30,000 acres). Relative to the size of California, that’s a pixel or three.
There are vast areas of desert out there.