“Big batteries” boost renewables
Hornsdale Battery in South Australia. Note the windmill to the left. Image courtesy of Hornsdale Power Reserve.
Editor’s note: This story was originally published by Yale Environment 360.
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The twin smokestacks of the Moss Landing Power Plant tower over Monterey Bay. Visible for miles along this picturesque stretch of the Northern California coast, the 500-foot-tall pillars crown what was once California’s largest electric power station a behemoth natural gas-fired generator. Today, as California steadily moves to decarbonize its economy, those stacks are idle and the plant is largely mothballed. Instead, the site is about to begin a new life as the world’s largest battery, storing excess energy when solar panels and wind farms are producing electricity and feeding it back into the grid when they’re not.
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Editor’s note: This story is part of the Utility Dive Outlook on 2021, a series on the trends that will shape the industry in 2021. For a look at the business trends affecting other industries, see the Dive Outlook on 2021.
The U.S. electric sector’s transition to cleaner generation has been led by states for the past four years, but 2021 is poised to offer stronger actions from the federal level. Under President-elect Joe Biden and a Democrat-led Congress, which will likely lead to the proliferation of battery storage and lower-carbon natural gas generation, among other energy developments, experts say.
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Officials at San Diego Community Power think San Diego Gas & Electric is manipulating rates to discourage customers from joining the soon-to-launch community energy program that will cover five cities, and have complained to the utility and the California Public Utilities Commission.
SDG&E officials deny the accusation, saying they are relying on the appropriate formula they are authorized to use to calculate rates for this year.
The dispute is expected to be resolved Thursday when the CPUC’s commissioners are scheduled to vote on a pair of competing proposals.
“We’re not trying to pick a fight,” said Bill Carnahan, interim CEO of San Diego Community Power, the community choice energy program that will offer an alternative to SDG&E when it to comes buying power for customers in San Diego, Chula Vista, La Mesa, Encinitas and Imperial Beach when it begins to accept customers later this year.
New San Diego-area community choice energy program feuding with SDG&E [The San Diego Union-Tribune]
Officials at San Diego Community Power think San Diego Gas & Electric is manipulating rates to discourage customers from joining the soon-to-launch community energy program that will cover five cities, and have complained to the utility and the California Public Utilities Commission.
SDG&E officials deny the accusation, saying they are relying on the appropriate formula they are authorized to use to calculate rates for this year.
The dispute is expected to be resolved Thursday when the CPUC’s commissioners are scheduled to vote on a pair of competing proposals.
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The Center for Community Energy (CCE), a 501(c)3 non-profit based in Southern California, will host a free virtual conference on Friday, Feb. 12, on Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G). The purpose of this conference is to help private rate payers and industry experts better understand what V2G is, and why it could become a key strategy to help ensure California can meet its goal: 60% renewable energy by 2030.
According to CCE Executive Director, Dr. Jose Torre-Bueno, “V2G could help us literally and figuratively breathe more easily. Among other things, it could help address California’s serious nighttime energy shortage problem often referred to as ‘The Duck Curve’ – a representation of the nightly decline in energy production from clean solar and wind resources that forces us to shift to power from carbon-emitting gas and even coal-powered electricity plants.