evening

Giant batteries and the grid

May 31, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

All across the country, electric utility companies are starting to use giant batteries to counteract the biggest weakness of renewable energy; namely, that the sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow. Solar panels and wind turbines can keep generating energy when people don’t need it and batteries can store up that energy for when they do.

Over the past three years, battery storage capacity on US grids has grown by a factor of ten adding up to 16 gigawatts. This year, it is expected to double again, led by massive growth in Texas, California, and Arizona.

California generates more electricity from solar power than any other state. But it has a timing problem: solar power is plentiful during the day, but it disappears in the evening when people get home from work and start using lots of electricity. The previous solution was to burn lots of fossil fuel to produce it.

This has been changing thanks to battery storage. Since 2020, California has installed more giant batteries than anywhere else in the world other than China. Batteries are gradually replacing fossil fuels for California’s evening power needs. On the evening of April 30th, for example, batteries supplied more than 20% of California’s electricity. This is equivalent to the output of seven large nuclear reactors.

Batteries have multiple uses in the grid. They handle big swings in generation from renewable sources, they reduce congestion on transmission lines, and they help to prevent blackouts during heat waves. Batteries are starting to eat into the market for fossil fuels and will play an ever-growing role in the electricity grid. As the role of renewables grows, so will the role of batteries.

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Giant Batteries Are Transforming the Way the U.S. Uses Electricity

Photo, posted December 5, 2022, courtesy of Jonathan Cutrer via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

How To Support Pollinators | Earth Wise

August 4, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Pollinators of all sorts have been in decline for a while. This is especially true of bees, bats, and monarch butterflies. Without pollinators, fruits, vegetables, and other plants cannot provide their contributions to our food supply. According to experts, about 30% of the food that ends up on our tables gets there because of pollinators.

Bees are the most efficient pollinators, but plenty of other insects do their share as well. Butterflies and months, flies, beetles, and wasps all are good pollinators. In addition to insects, birds and bats can also be pollinators.

Entomologists at Texas A&M University have offered some science-based advice for homeowners who want to keep pollinators around and thriving during the summer months.

Pollinators need flowers that bloom at different times of the year. So, home gardens should overlap blooms. Native and drought-tolerant species are good additions to a garden or landscape.

Colorful gardens attract more pollinators because different pollinators are attracted to different colors. Bumblebees like blues and purples; other bees are attracted to yellows and whites. Butterflies like bright colors like oranges and pinks.

Plant flowers with different shapes and sizes because pollinators flower preferences come in all shapes and sizes.

Provide shelter for pollinators. Houses for bees and other pollinators are available for purchase. Or people can make their own using plastic tubes.

And probably most importantly, go easy on pesticides. If it is really necessary to apply pesticides, do it in the evening when most pollinators have called it a day.

Having a colorful garden with lots of variety is a fine addition to one’s home. Beyond that, it is a valuable contribution to helping preserve essential pollinators.

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Top Five Tips For Supporting Pollinators This Summer

Photo, posted August 14, 2017, courtesy of USFWS Midwest Region via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Complications For New York Solar Farms

July 12, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

A study by engineers at Cornell University looked at the implications of adding utility-scale solar farms throughout New York State. Adding such farms could reduce demand for electricity from conventional sources by nearly 10% in some places. But the engineers caution that winters in upstate New York could create some novel problems for the state’s power system.

Electrical energy demand tends to be low around midday when many people are not home. Electrical production from solar farms is high at that time when the sun is at its highest position in the sky. This can lead to what power system operators call “ramping”, which is the term for rapid increases or decreases in demand.

This sort of ramping was first discussed in California years ago. When people wake up and prepare for the day, there is a morning peak in electrical load, which occurs before solar production ramps up. When people get home from work in the evening, energy demands create a second peak. A graph of this lack of synchronicity of load and supply looks a little like the shape of a duck and is popularly known as the duck curve.

The Cornell engineers figured out that maximum ramping in New York – where electrical demand and electricity supply from solar farms are out of synch- will take place in the winter. In fact, when there are several days of sunshine in a row during winter, the largest ramping in the New York power system will take place.

The general issue of having solar energy available when it is most needed is one that is the driver for energy storage technology. If the energy can be provided when demand calls for it, there would be no more ramping.

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Winter could pose solar farm ‘ramping’ snag for power grid

Photo, posted September 8, 2015, courtesy of New York National Guard via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Milestone For Energy Storage

April 24, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The United States has now added the capacity to store a billion watts of power for one hour and it may double that total by the end of this year. According to the firm GTM Research, the energy storage industry – previously nearly invisible – is undergoing rapid growth. Much of the growth has been in homes with products like the Tesla Powerwall but has also been on the scale of the electric grid, where power companies can use storage to control when to deploy excess electricity generated from renewable sources such as solar power.