A BIG Battery stopped black out in SA

[Ampster]

....... Just have some candles ready when the lights go out after the batteries die.

You are missing the whole point of the current iteration of battery storage. It was to replace peaker plants and that may reduce some brownouts and make the grid more resilient. That was the upshot of the article Pete posted.

However if the grid goes down for other reasons these batteries are not designed to carry the load.

[SunEagle]

You are missing the whole point of the current iteration of battery storage. It was to replace peaker plants and that may reduce some brownouts and make the grid more resilient. That was the upshot of the article Pete posted.

However if the grid goes down for other reasons these batteries are not designed to carry the load.

I agree. I just think that a lot of people will get the wrong message and believe that batteries will solve all of their power needs regardless of the outage length.

Yes batteries can keep a brown out from happening but the truth is they are a long way from handling a long black out.

All I ask is for others to make sure they do not raise expectations and post accordingly.

[solar pete]

It seems the big batteries as others have said help to ride out the problem when we are suddenly disconnected from the national grid or as has happened a storm comes through and we loose the wind farms, in SA we have 2 gas peakers that get fired up at night time BUT we have actually gone very old school and have about 20 big diesel generators scattered all around the place and can be fired up quite quickly when needed. (we know they guys who wired them in)

This all came about after the famous blackout we had a couple of years back, the whole state was down for most of the day and parts of the state were without power for about a week.we had a big storm and it knocked down a bunch of high voltage transmission lines. Since the new batteries and the diesel gennys went in I haven't noticed any blackouts more than a few minutes duration in my area, ( they type from cars or trees hitting power poles) I think they are working as intended. So I agree with SunEagle in that batteries wont handle large scale blackouts themselves but they do seem to be keeping us going till the diesels kick in when we have a disruption, cheers all

[emartin00]

I agree. I just think that a lot of people will get the wrong message and believe that batteries will solve all of their power needs regardless of the outage length.

Yes batteries can keep a brown out from happening but the truth is they are a long way from handling a long black out.

All I ask is for others to make sure they do not raise expectations and post accordingly.

Batteries can handle longer duration blackout in microgrid scenarios where there is adequate solar or other distributed generation, but those are pretty few and far between currently.

[SunEagle]

Batteries can handle longer duration blackout in microgrid scenarios where there is adequate solar or other distributed generation, but those are pretty few and far between currently.

As of now those microgrids are still dependent on people shedding loads so the batteries can last as long as the grid is down. If you add up the daily kWh usage of even a small population you will find out that it exceeds most large battery installations.

[SunEagle]

To be clear to the readers of this forum. I am very much in support of battery systems that will help support our power requirements. What I am concerned with is for people to get too comfortable in believing that batteries will continue to provide power through long grid outages.

Most grid outages are accompanied by bad weather and clouds. Even a large solar farm would see a reduction in generation that will impact the power supply for their customers. Even with a battery system in place the amount of power available will be limited and need to be conserved and rationed to keep the lights on through out.

I have said many times that a great power generation industry needs to be a portfolio of different types of power sources including any and all renewable along with fossil fuel and nuclear. Energy storage is part of that portfolio.

If we become too dependent on one or two of those sources we run the risk of going into the dark.

Solar is important but is just one of those renewable power sources that we as a world need to explore and install in places that make economical sense.

[Ampster]

Looks like that Big Battery in South Australia will no longer be the world"s largest:
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/lar...system/581540/

In this market i wouldn't want to be on the peaker plant business in California.

[J.P.M.]

Looks like that Big Battery in South Australia will no longer be the world"s largest:
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/lar...system/581540/

In this market i wouldn't want to be on the peaker plant business in California.

I'm not sure I'd want to be in any business in CA at this time.
From want Pete writes however, I might want to think about being in the diesel powered genny business in Australia.

[peakbagger]

If the peaker plants get capacity payments they dont mind just sitting there not running. They live off the capacity payment any peaking operation is just gravy. A few years ago I worked on peaker plant in the mid Atlantic. It was 20 years old and the vast majority of its operating hours were a biannual test to prove they could meet the contracted output. I got involved so they could increase the peak output in summertime when the capacity payments were lucrative. I modeled the plant and looked at a couple of options. We ended up installing wet compression on the turbine to boost up its output. I think they picked up 6 MW. I was not involved with the financials but think they had a three year payback. The plant was transformer limited or might have been able to squeeze out a few more MW. They did not have any staff on site, if they were dispatched they started it remotely and then had someone drive over.

I have a 3MWhr battery that is capable of 500 KW on a new CHP coming up. It will be interesting to see how it works in real life.

[Ampster]

If the peaker plants get capacity payments they dont mind just sitting there not running. They live off the capacity payment any peaking operation is just gravy.............

I understand those payments are baked into the rate I pay. I presume on an unbundled rate basis it is probably in the Distribution and Transmission portion of my rate because I get my generation through a CCA. In California one of the other drivers is the states RPS policy. Also the duck curve continues to drive the need for rapid ramp up in generation, at least until some of the more modern and efficient combined cycle plants can come on line. I used to belong to OhmConnect and had a pretty good idea when the Peakers were running but I haven't followed that market in the past 3 years. California has installed significant short term battery storage with

I have a 3MWhr battery that is capable of 500 KW on a new CHP coming up. It will be interesting to see how it works in real life. [/QUOTE]

A friend in the Central Valley of California has a niche installing CHP units for food processors.