Edison and General Electric on Monday revealed a first-of-its-kind battery storage system that will enable instant power output from a natural gas peaking plant to accommodate the state’s changing electricity requirements while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The system, which was set up at two different Southern California Edison “peaker” plants this month, will offer the utility increased flexibility as the big quantities of renewable wind and solar power needed by state mandates have made energy generation cleaner however far less predictable.
Peaker plants are developed to come online quickly when demand for power is high, such as on a hot summer season day. But they are also one of the least effective resources offered to the utility.
The 10 megawatt batteries, which include cells made by Samsung SDI, can provide power immediately, getting rid of the requirement for the plant to burn fuel in “standby” mode. Before incorporating the batteries, the 50 megawatt plant would take about 10 minutes to increase to a preferred capacity.
Southern California Edison’s president, Ron Nichols, stated at an event to reveal the hybrid electrical gas turbine in Norwalk, California that the new system would cut plant startups in half and lower overall run hours by 60 percent (that’s more than half).
The systems will work especially and solar power drops off at the end of the day, simply at the time when demand begins to increase as utility customers get home from work and start running a/c or turning on appliances.
California is requiring its energies to source half of their electricity requires from sustainable sources by 2030. At the same moment, the state has needed procurement of energy storage systems to assist incorporate those renewables.
