Battery Storage | PA Pundits

Browsing All posts tagged under »Battery Storage«

Breakthrough In U.S. Grid Storage Estimating

June 17, 2022 by PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~ Regular readers know I have been writing about the astronomical cost of energy storage required to make solar and wind (SAW) power reliable. I have published some simple engineering analyses showing that short term intermittency, a few cloudy or low wind days, requires a huge amount of storage. Now we […]

Backup Battery Cost Fantasies Abound

June 9, 2022 by PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~ The only technologically feasible way to make renewables reliable at in the foreseeable future is with massive amounts of grid scale batteries. Whether this is even remotely feasible depends on the cost and here things get truly strange. On the one hand we have real utility reports of the capital […]

California Secretly Struggles With Renewables

January 18, 2021 by PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~ California has hooked up a grid battery system that is almost ten times bigger than the previous world record holder, but when it comes to making renewables reliable it is so small it might as well not exist. The new battery array is rated at a storage capacity of 1,200 […]

New York Can’t Buy Its Way Out Of Blackouts

December 26, 2020 by PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~ New York City will soon be home to the world’s biggest utility-scale battery system, designed to back up its growing reliance on intermittent renewables. At 400 MWh this batch of batteries will be more than triple the 129 MWh world leader in Australia. The City of New York’s director of […]

Batteries Not A Sustainable Backup For Wind And Solar – Part II: Safety, Health And Cost

June 13, 2020 by PA Pundits - International

By Dr. Jay Lehr and Terigi Ciccone ~ Joy and Celebration: In his Laudeat et Jubilat, Mozart gave specific instructions to the conductor; “Allegro ma non troppo,” or play it happily, but not so much. In this second and concluding part on backing up inconsistent wind and solar energy with battery storage, we give these same instructions […]

Batteries Not A Sustainable Backup For Wind And Solar – Part I: Environmental Concerns

June 4, 2020 by PA Pundits - International

By Dr. Jay Lehr and Terigi Ciccone ~ Governors, Utility, and Industry captains are rushing for the headlines, with each claiming the most, the biggest, the newest solar plants and wind plants with the sexiest battery-backup systems. The last time we saw such a feverish gold-rush was in 1849, but these new media-miners are off for pyrite, […]

Elon Musk: Brilliant At Gaming The System

September 9, 2019 by PA Pundits - International

By Dr. Jay Lehr ~ Elon Musk is a gamer, but I do not mean the term for video gamer though I am sure he would be great at that too. I mean he really knows how to game systems, be they federal or state tax benefits or praying on public fears, such as his […]

Battery Fantasy

September 5, 2019 by PA Pundits - International

From the team at CFACT ~ By Mark Mathis of The Clear Energy Alliance ~ Since solar power and wind power and only produce electricity 25 to 30 percent of the time (and sometimes not at all) they need to be backed up by something. No biggie, we’ll just build lots of giant batteries like […]

Battery Storage Is An Infinitesimal Part Of Electrical Power

July 3, 2019 by PA Pundits - International

By Steve Goreham ~ Large-scale storage of electricity is the latest proposed solution to boost the deployment of renewables. Renewable energy advocates, businesses, and state governments plan to use batteries to store electricity to solve the problem of intermittent wind and solar output. But large-scale storage is only an insignificant part of the electrical power […]

Batteries Cannot Make Renewables Reliable

April 27, 2019 by PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~ Utilities are starting to experiment with adding batteries to wind and solar projects. These storage projects are feeding the mistaken belief that batteries can cure the intermittency that makes wind and solar unworkable as a reliable source of power. The reality is that these battery projects are trivial in size […]

Battery Trickery By U.S. Utilities

March 6, 2019 by PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~ The use of big batteries to partially offset the intermittency of renewables is growing rapidly. Unfortunately some utilities have adopted a deceptive practice with the public, making these battery packs seem much more important then they are. It is all part of hyping the utility’s supposed greenness, which helps their […]

100% Renewable Deception

November 26, 2018 by PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~ Press coverage of the crusade for 100% renewable electricity invariably talks about wind and solar energy. As I have pointed out, the wind and solar fantasy requires a stupendous amount of battery storage, which is never mentioned. This is because the 100% feasibility studies are deceptive. Wind and solar come […]

Australian Politics – Labor Party Fail: If Solar Power Is The Cheapest, Why The Need For Subsidies?

November 22, 2018 by PA Pundits - International

By Andrew Bolt ~ Here in Australia, the Labor Party’s Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy, environmental spokesman Mark Butler: The cheapest and cleanest replacement power generation is renewable energy. That’s, of course, ignoring the effect it has on the rest of the system, which must supply 24-hour, reliable power. But wait. If renewables […]

Batteries Not Included In Renewable Fantasy Plans

November 18, 2018 by PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~ The political fantasy of 100% renewable electricity is sweeping the nation. Governors and mayors, towns and cities, and whole States are vying for who can get there first. California’s 2045 target date was recently topped by Colorado’s incoming Governor’s announced target of 2040, just 21 short years from now. This […]

Energy Storage Isn’t Ready For Wide Deployment

November 7, 2018 by PA Pundits - International

By Todd Royal ~ When understanding and examining energy storage for wide-scale, societal deployment that is scalable, affordable and reliable needs to include these factors: energy security, renewable power production and cyber security. At this time energy storage doesn’t meet any of these criteria. The best example is Tesla’s seemingly successful deployment November 2017 in […]