Yesterday we peaked out at 3GW discharging rate, and 4GW charging rate. We are plowing ahead in the transition to utilizing all of our excess solar! We peak at 25GW expected today, so we have a little ways to go but it's incredible how far and how fast they're replacing everything. Clean air FTW! Thanks sun!
1GW of "power" they can supply for 4 hours if you completely discharge the battery.
But that's it. Batteries could supply 100% of the grid briefly, and you still wouldn't be anywhere near having completed a switchover.
Makes the operating economics non trivial.
-- Temperatures are mild throughout most of TX (50s and 60s F); temps in CA are similar, perhaps a bit warmer;
-- It's roughly mid-day in both places (3PM TX, 1PM CA);
-- TX has a population of ~30M, CA has ~39M
..yet somehow right now TX is consuming ~47GW (per ercot) while CA is only consuming ~23.5GW (per caiso). What gives?
1. TX has more heavy industry than CA.
2. CA has spent decades and billions on energy efficiency improvements.
3. CA prices are higher, which encourages lower demand, and encourages investments in efficiency. TX has lower prices which encourages more demand.
(2) high energy costs lead to more investment in electrical efficiency in CA;
(3) high energy costs mean that if you're running an aluminum smelter (for example), you don't run it in CA. Or building a new mega data center. so there are fewer electricity-intensive industrial facilities in CA than there would otherwise be.
But what Texas has is much higher requirements for air conditioning, which can't be easily gas-powered at the level of individual houses. Thus the higher electrical energy requirements. Now, you can run gas turbines at the utility level to generate electricity, but that's much less common at the level of individual homes.