this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Any reason they're counting energy by power?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Power tells you how large of a gap in grid capacity-vs-demand storage can cover while renewables are below peak production. That's the important number, as long as the energy stored is sufficient to last until renewable output goes back up.

Giving an energy storage number by itself could be misleading because it seems the batteries that have been built take longer than an hour to discharge. So for example 26 GWh storage does not equal 26 GW grid capacity.

But this article, like many others does seem to be loose with the power-vs-energy metrics:

If 6,600 MW doesn’t sound like that much, consider it is enough to supply electricity to about 6.6 million homes in California for 4 hours

Maybe the implication is that the total energy storage is 26,400 MWh?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Perhaps in the same vein as what a power plant produces?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Possibly because throughout is important, possibly because MWh seems to confuse a lot of people. People are used to thinking of electricity in its flowing state and in the modern era of batteries have generally been given it in time of operation of what the battery is for.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Probably pretty consumption is increasing faster than their capacity

[–] [email protected] -2 points 11 months ago