Can you please give us a few examples of grid-scale storage installations that are not hydroelectric?
The amount of storage is set to increase substantially this year.
"Developers plan to add 6,813 MW of battery power storage capacity in CAISO's domain this year, dominated by four-hour lithium-ion resources, roughly double their additions in 2023"
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights...
https://cleantechnica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Califor...
There is some interesting data about CAISO batteries, but this graph is not it.
[1]:https://www.caiso.com/documents/californiaisopeakloadhistory...
https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-batteries-apr-2024/
My understanding of the graphs is they show April for each year.
The first graph of the article shows batteries peak 2.5 G higher than 2023, which is far from explaining the flattening of gas use. The "battery shifting load" and "Load not including battery charging" graphs tend to show that the big difference from 2023 is to ease the morning ramp down, which is good progress, but much more incremental than what's advertised by the graph you're showing.
However it's still 9% of the current MW capacity. We'll see how it ages and it costs in the long run. Most of the pilotable energy sources in the state remain nuke, hydro & fossil fuels.
However it's still 9% of the current MW capacity. We'll see how it ages and it costs in the long run. Most of the pilotable energy sources in the state remain nuke, hydro & fossil fuels. Safety issues, notably fires, notably in Australia's grid are still an issue.
It's highly dependent on the kind of landscape you have though. Great for places like Switzerland, much harder to find a suitable place for it in Texas or Australia.
(Of course you can build pumped hydroelectric storage anywhere, it's just cheaper in some places.)
Hills or mountains make it significantly more feasible. Check the locations of most hydroelectric plants.
(By the same token, Sahara might be an ideal place to locate large solar power installations to feed the entire Eurasia, were it not for the transmission.)
And look at the map, they seem quite widespread.