That’s such an incredible amount of battery storage. You’re right that it doesn’t give too many specifics about integration.
The reason I’m so curious is that batteries are generally pretty low-voltage and low-current devices; I was under the impression that even the most hardcore batteries were limited to around 1 or 2 kV, which isn’t even a high enough voltage for the primary distribution system. There are def batteries that can handle secondary distribution voltages, but the currents at that level are generally pretty large (since the voltage gets stepped down but power doesn’t, the current increases to compensate). I thought batteries wouldn’t be super helpful given that, so clearly I’ve got other misunderstandings to clear up
Sadly we don’t have many renewables near me, so i haven’t had a chance to see actual schematics and get a sense of necessary equipment and implementation
And if you do the battery pack thing and connect a bunch together, you need extremely sophisticated charging and discharging controls to make sure that all the batteries maintain the same operating profile; if they start to get out of sync, you’re asking for potentially catastrophic failure!
It definitely is a complex situation. There were some scheduling issues with batteries releasing power into the grid too early, when they were not needed. I'm assuming that'll be sorted out by next year since I think this is the first time the batteries were relied upon so heavily
Here's one article I saw about it. Not sure about the details on how it works with the grid though
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-california-kept-the-lights-on-during-monster-heat-wave/
Fascinating, thank you!
That’s such an incredible amount of battery storage. You’re right that it doesn’t give too many specifics about integration.
The reason I’m so curious is that batteries are generally pretty low-voltage and low-current devices; I was under the impression that even the most hardcore batteries were limited to around 1 or 2 kV, which isn’t even a high enough voltage for the primary distribution system. There are def batteries that can handle secondary distribution voltages, but the currents at that level are generally pretty large (since the voltage gets stepped down but power doesn’t, the current increases to compensate). I thought batteries wouldn’t be super helpful given that, so clearly I’ve got other misunderstandings to clear up
Sadly we don’t have many renewables near me, so i haven’t had a chance to see actual schematics and get a sense of necessary equipment and implementation
And if you do the battery pack thing and connect a bunch together, you need extremely sophisticated charging and discharging controls to make sure that all the batteries maintain the same operating profile; if they start to get out of sync, you’re asking for potentially catastrophic failure!
It definitely is a complex situation. There were some scheduling issues with batteries releasing power into the grid too early, when they were not needed. I'm assuming that'll be sorted out by next year since I think this is the first time the batteries were relied upon so heavily