Not Enough Power
A 24-position battery charging center, part of the Respond! office furniture system.-the necessary link between your building’s AC electrical system and your battery-powered workstations and equipment.
Governor Newsome has suggested that California keep the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Station open for as long as ten more years because the efforts to convert to renewable sources are not being implemented fast enough to keep up with demand.
In the parlance of the industry, this is known as a “resource adequacy” problem.
An agreement was made in 2016 to shut down Diablo Canyon by 2025. Now, much to the consternation of the anti-nuclear advocates, particularly residents of the neighboring Central Coast, this will not happen. Hundreds of letters are being written.
More power generation is not the only way to supply power during peak-demand times on the grid. Batteries, charged during off-peak hours and discharged during peak hours, are a cost-effective and reliable way to address the resource adequacy issue.
Read on.
What is Resource Adequacy?
“Resource Adequacy” is an ongoing discussion topic in the California energy community. A better term for the discussion might be “Resource Inadequacy” because that is the real problem.
The California Public Utilities Commission, (CPUC) is striving to meet a goal of 15% capacity above anticipated needs. Calfornia’s Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs), entities enabled by the California legislature to accelerate the conversion to clean energy that now serve the greater portion of the state, are not meeting the goals. Last year, almost every CCA was approved for a waiver of this requirement because they were unable to secure enough generation, despite best faith efforts. And power shutdowns are becoming more common as the shortfall is felt by consumers.
Actions have been taken. In 2020, the CPUC, over the objections of the CCAs, directed PG&E and Southern California Edison (the two biggest investor-owned utilities) to take over the power procurement responsibilities that were previously the domain of the CCAs. Also, in March of 2021, electric rates for peak demand hours were substantially increased. In June 2022, the California Department of Energy issued new rules that take effect in January 2023. These mandate Solar and Batteries on all new construction, both residential and commercial.
Those applying for permits to build solar generation are now also asked to incorporate large battery arrays alongside their solar plants.
Why batteries?
Batteries allow generation to be time-shifted
Residential rooftop solar has an impact. The growth of home solar has shifted peak demand to later times of the day. Since rooftop solar performs best at midday, much of the early afternoon residential demand has been reduced. Peak demand is now later in the day when solar generation is declining. By adding batteries to the system, some of the solar-generated midday energy can be stored for use later in the day.
This is a start, but as we noted in a previous post, there is a lot of energy lost when a series of invertors, step-up transformers, step-down transformers, and power supplies are incorporated into the transmission and distribution grids.
The grid-friendly solution
Batteries combined with Solar at the point of use are a best practice
Avoiding energy losses is why local and building microgrids are the best solution. And why we are so enthused about incorporating battery power into our office system product., Respond!.'
Backup generating power systems are not inexpensive. Not every business can afford the investment. Furthermore, most of these systems serve an entire facility. In times of crisis, it may be that not every circuit or device in a building really needs to be operating. But large generating systems usually cannot make that distinction, at least not without another investment in a facility power distribution system.
We favor lean thinking. Point-of-use batteries are a better, and often more economical approach.
