Sleek-Jet
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Battery power storage is a joke. Acres of batteries provide very little capacity and run time. The battery pictured below is rated at 300 megawatts and 450 megawatt hours, which will power about 375 homes for 1½ hours. Scale that up to the 120,000,000 homes and apartments in the United States, and 320,000 battery plants would be needed to provide that 90 minutes of power.
One hundred fifty battery plants the same size of this one would run SCE and PG&E's peak summer load for about fifteen minutes. Construction and grid integration would take years and cost hundreds of billions. After fifteen minutes, what will California residents, businesses, and manufacturing plants use for electricity?
I'm curious about another thing. When solar and battery plants requiring untold square miles of land are built, are they going to be subjected to the same scrutiny for environmental compliance that fossil fuel related projects undergo? Will the EPA demand the studies include future impacts on global warming like they do for refineries, thermal power plants, and pipelines?
The day is coming when the Southwest's pristine deserts will be defaced with these abominations. What about endangered species like the horned toad and barrel cactus? Will the same rules apply to so-called renewable energy?
I think your math is off... 450 MWh is 450,000 kWh. I don't see those 375 homes using a 1000 kWh in 90 minutes. If they do, I'd love to have a couple on my system.
But your main point is correct; battery and renewables have to be overbuilt by about a factor of 2 to approach the reliability of a traditional thermal generation.