Per Bloomberg:
(Bloomberg) California approved one of the the biggest installations of battery-based energy-storage systems in the U.S. as the state moves to add power resources to its grid after suffering from rolling blackouts.
The California Public Utilities Commission signed off on previously announced utility contracts for nearly 1.2 gigawatts of battery storage capacity that is expected to be in service by August of next year. The commission’s vote comes less than two weeks after California’s grid operator imposed power shutoffs that left millions in the dark during a record heat wave.
Last year, state regulators ordered utilities to secure an additional 3.3 gigawatts of reserve supplies as it anticipated electricity shortfalls with the retirement of aging natural gas plants. The batteries will be able to soak up excess energy produced by California’s solar farms during the day and discharge that electricity when the sun goes down and solar production falls.
In May, Edison International’s Southern California Edison said it had inked deals for 770 megawatts of battery projects and PG&E Corp. said it had agreements for 423 megawatts to help close the gap. Those contracts were approved Thursday.
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Also, from Energy Storage news:
Update 21 August 2020: A representative of Capital Dynamics contacted Energy-Storage.news with the following additional information:
The combined projects' output and capacity are planned as follows: "1.95GW and up to 7.8GWh if all projects are 4-hour storage," the representative said.
I had expected more emphasis on some for of gas (hydrogen, ammonia, or renewable methane) to be more prominent in California’s storage systems. Renewable methane would be particularly attractive, since the infrastructure for storing and distributing it are already in place. But, there’s the problem that methane is 84 times worse than CO2 at greenhouse heat trapping, and it tends to leak out of that infrastructure and into the atmosphere.