[This message has been edited by cliffw (edited 03-02-2024).]

Here's something that's sure to light up (pun intended) cliffw's face with pride!

"Texas will add more grid batteries than any other state in 2024"

quote With cheap land and a competitive market irresistible to energy storage developers, the Lone Star State will even overtake California in battery deployments this year.

Julian Spector for Canary Media; February 26, 2024.
https://www.canarymedia.com...ended%202023%20w ith.

Here's the first four paragraphs:

quote California and Texas have a new clean-energy superlative to compete over: who’s got the most grid batteries. Last year, Texas overtook California in large-scale solar power capacity. When huge amounts of solar power rush onto the grid, [grid-connected] batteries tend to follow. Now, Texas is building more grid batteries than California, the longtime undisputed leader in clean energy storage. Developers are expected to complete 6.4 gigawatts of new grid battery capacity in Texas this year, according to the federal Energy Information Administration. That’s more than double the 5.6 gigawatts of battery capacity it ended 2023 with. It’s also as much battery capacity as the entire United States built last year, which was a record year for the energy storage industry. The projection outpaces the 5.2 gigawatts set to come online in California. The surge of batteries in these states underscores the fact that energy storage is an increasingly major part of the country’s transitioning electricity system. The U.S. is slated to add 14.3 gigawatts of battery storage overall this year; that represents 23% of all new power plant capacity. Climate analysts have long called for massive storage expansion to facilitate a shift to low-carbon energy — now it’s finally starting to happen.

Curiously, there's no reference to wind energy in this article. I think that's an oversight, because grid-connected batteries complement wind and solar energy in exactly the same way: by storing surplus power during the peak generation hours for wind and solar, and then releasing the stored power back to the grid as needed, which might well be after sunset or during hours when the wind is lessened. It's doubly curious, because Texas is the acknowledged leader among the 50 states in producing wind energy.

I think it's safe to say that all or almost all of these new grid-connected battery installations are using some version of the common lithium ion battery technology. It's been the dominant technology for grid-connected batteries.

If only those hardy pioneers who paved the way for Texas to gain independence from Mexico and then become part of the United States could have foreseen that their historical descendants would be in the vanguard of the pivot from carbon intensive fuels like oil and gas, towards more climate friendly sources of energy like wind and solar... their visages would have been lit with "Net Zero" pride as luminously as cliffw's when he sees this!


"I LIKE what they're doing about this in Texas!"

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 03-04-2024).]