$1B Solar and Battery Storage Project Breaks Ground in Utah

https://electrek.co/2024/09/23/a-1-billion-solar-battery-storage-project-just-broke-ground-in-utah/

by m463 • 2 years ago

66 31 2 years ago

jimt1234• 2 years ago

... Tesla is providing battery storage.

This supports my theory that Elon has become a right wing warrior in order to gain credibility and political capital in right wing states, allowing him to obtain massive contracts for electricity storage (and production, too?). And I think it's worked extremely well. 5+ years ago Tesla was a California, tech-weenie company, and that in itself is gonna keep a lot of doors closed in red states.

s1artibartfast5• 2 years ago

The Gigafactory Nevada site was selected back in 2014. Tesla is just a leader in this space. They are still doing grid level storage in left leaning California.

In fact, a project more than 10 times this big was just announced in California.

https://www.intersectpower.com/tesla-provides-intersect-powe...

Loughla2• 2 years ago

I think it's probably more likely that he became a right wing warrior because he was always that thing, but finally felt that he was untouchable.

mustafa_pasi• 2 years ago

To me it seems like the Democrats have a very weird hierarchy and Musk couldn't do any inroads there, because the incumbents at the top of that hierarchy consider him an outsider. So his options were to either suck it up and accept his status within hierarchy, or champion a Republican candidate which, if elected, would immediately propel him to the very front of the decision making.

threeseed• 2 years ago

This supports my theory that Elon has become a right wing warrior in order to gain credibility and political capital in right wing states

Tesla is facing securities and wire fraud charges by the DOJ and SEC over their FSD claims.

He would be looking at jail time given his previous run-ins with the SEC.

Trump can make all of that go away.

harry8• 2 years ago

I don't know the answer but it seems like a reasonable question to ask:

"Would he be facing those charges presently if he was the no. 1 public voice of democrat orthodoxy?"

Maybe he would.

Maybe we all suffer from Gell-Mann amnesia knowing how corrupt it all is when we turn the page and get concerned about maybe the tribe you dislike more will get power, which they always will in a 2 party system.

I don't care for Elon or his politics.

I am convinced that entrenched and accepted corruption is the biggest threat to continuing to have a democracy. Right there exists a cross-partisan rage that someone will tap and ride to power. Let's hope they're not genuinely evil.

_ea1k2• 2 years ago

Can someone explain the economics of this to me?

As I understand it, battery storage isn't cheaper than just base load generation (nuclear, combined cycle). However, it sounds like natural gas peaker plants are significantly more expensive. Can that be quantified? ~80% more, or more than $.03kwh difference? Are the levelized costs of battery storage, including financing, now less than this? Are incentives a part of it?

I'm guessing the solar aspect plays into this as well, as a large plant like that likely produces at times when prices are relatively cheap. It'd be really to see it all quantified.

s1artibartfast5• 2 years ago

I dont have the data you are looking for, but my take on California is that cost is largely an afterthought. regulatory pressure and regulatory costs drive up or eliminate the alternatives, and power companies have a captive market. As a result, I'm paying $0.50/kwh with a large green component, and have no choice on the matter.

My only alternative is to try and reduce my use of the grid, which also means going solar.

energy1233• 2 years ago

There's private energy developers building multi-GW of utility scale battery storage in Texas at the moment.

_ea1k2• 2 years ago

One of the most compelling arguments that I hear from the anti-renewables types is that they do it in California and it doesn't work.

I think there's more to it than that, though. TX has seen tremendous growth in renewables, and grid pricing is excellent there from the prices that I've seen.

energy1233• 2 years ago

Battery storage doesn't need to be cheaper than nuclear on a kWh vs kWh basis, because you only need about 5 hours storage to get to 98% renewables.

The combination of solar and wind and battery storage needs to be cheaper, and it is. The CSIRO, who factored in all costs on both sides, found that it's about 50% of the price of new nuclear in Australia. This conclusion may vary in places with less sun or an existing nuclear industry with a track record of building cheap plants quickly.

Note also that a nuclear grid will also need battery storage because demand itself is variable. Unless you overbuild nuclear and run at a low capacity factor, but that carries with it its own additional costs.

rswskg• 2 years ago

Overbuilding nuclear and diverting the excess in liquid hydrocarbon synthesis would be a great way to do things.

revscat• 2 years ago

According to [1] “solar-plus-storage energy projects are already cheaper than new fossil fuel power plants in many parts of the world, and costs are poised to fall further.”

There are links provided there that may answer your questions in more detail.

[1] https://www.vox.com/climate/372852/solar-power-energy-growth...

tbrownaw• 2 years ago

400-megawatt (MW) solar and 400 MW/1,600-megawatt-hour battery storage

So 4 hours worth of storage is apparently enough to make this sort of thing work.

skybrian3• 2 years ago

It’s enough to shift power to the evening when demand is highest.

$1B Solar and Battery Storage Project Breaks Ground in Utah

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