Wisland says solar doing its job in California, state to install batteries to store energy
Solar power is growing so fast in California — with installations by customers increasing tenfold since 2006 — that it is turning the state’s power system upside down.
In a twist that is being closely watched by power companies around the country, California utilities will install massive banks of batteries and other devices to store the power surplus created by solar panels in the afternoon, when the sun’s rays are strong. The batteries are then to begin discharging power into California’s electric grid in the early evening, around sunset, when the solar generation of energy dies down but demand rises as millions of people get home and turn on air-conditioners, televisions and other electricity gobblers.
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The utilities commission’s order for storage, which will be phased in starting in 2014, represents shifting needs, said Laura Wisland, a renewables specialist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “We’re shifting from a need for capacity on the system to a need for flexibility on the system,” Ms. Wisland said.
Some of the storage need could be met by the batteries in electric vehicles, said Ufuk Topcu, a specialist on storage and grid dynamics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. But that would require more electric cars than are now on the road.
But none of this is bad news, Ms. Wisland said. “The duck chart is illustrating that solar is doing its job,” she said.