Tesla, PG&E to Help Build World’s Largest Energy Storage Facility in California

A California county has given the green light to what officials say will be part of the largest renewable energy storage facility in the world.
The project, which is a partnership between Tesla and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) won unanimous approval from the Monterey County Planning Commission Wednesday, NBC Bay Area reported. It is the second clean energy battery facility to be approved at the site of an underused power plant in Moss Landing.
"Certainly, combined, this is going to be the largest battery facility in the world, so it's a big boost to our community and our country," Monterey County Supervisor John Phillips said, as CleanTechnica reported.
The Tesla/ PG&E facility will have the capacity to store up to 730 megawatts of wind and solar power during off-peak hours, the Monterey Herald reported. The other project recently approved on the site, which is being built by Vistra Energy, will have a capacity of 1,200 megawatts.
The most recent project will involve the installation of 268 Tesla Megapack lithium-ion batteries.
The Megapack is a relatively new Tesla design, following the Powerpack batteries it used at its storage facility in Hornsdale, South Australia, which is the largest lithium ion battery in the world.
Tesla explained how they work:
Megapack significantly reduces the complexity of large-scale battery storage and provides an easy installation and connection process. Each Megapack comes from the factory fully-assembled with up to 3 megawatt hours (MWhs) of storage and 1.5 MW of inverter capacity, building on Powerpack's engineering with an AC interface and 60% increase in energy density to achieve significant cost and time savings compared to other battery systems and traditional fossil fuel power plants. Using Megapack, Tesla can deploy an emissions-free 250 MW, 1 GWh power plant in less than three months on a three-acre footprint – four times faster than a traditional fossil fuel power plant of that size. Megapack can also be DC-connected directly to solar, creating seamless renewable energy plants.
The Megapack also replaces the need for "peaker" natural gas power plants, Tesla explained. These are power plants that fire up whenever the local grid can't meet demand.
"They cost millions of dollars per day to operate and are some of the least efficient and dirtiest plants on the grid," Tesla wrote.
Construction on the company's Moss Landing project will begin at the end of the month and should be completed by the end of 2020, NBC Bay Area reported.
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California is bracing for rare January wildfires this week amid damaging Santa Ana winds coupled with unusually hot and dry winter weather.
High winds, gusting up to 80- to 90 miles per hour in some parts of the state, are expected to last through Wednesday evening. Nearly the entire state has been in a drought for months, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, which, alongside summerlike temperatures, has left vegetation dry and flammable.
Utilities Southern California Edison and PG&E, which serves the central and northern portions of the state, warned it may preemptively shut off power to hundreds of thousands of customers to reduce the risk of electrical fires sparked by trees and branches falling on live power lines. The rare January fire conditions come on the heels of the worst wildfire season ever recorded in California, as climate change exacerbates the factors causing fires to be more frequent and severe.
California is also experiencing the most severe surge of COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, with hospitals and ICUs over capacity and a stay-at-home order in place. Wildfire smoke can increase the risk of adverse health effects due to COVID, and evacuations forcing people to crowd into shelters could further spread the virus.
As reported by AccuWeather:
In the atmosphere, air flows from high to low pressure. The setup into Wednesday is like having two giant atmospheric fans working as a team with one pulling and the other pushing the air in the same direction.
Normally, mountains to the north and east of Los Angeles would protect the downtown which sits in a basin. However, with the assistance of the offshore storm, there will be areas of gusty winds even in the L.A. Basin. The winds may get strong enough in parts of the basin to break tree limbs and lead to sporadic power outages and sparks that could ignite fires.
"Typically, Santa Ana winds stay out of downtown Los Angeles and the L.A. Basin, but this time, conditions may set up just right to bring 30- to 40-mph wind gusts even in those typically calm condition areas," said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Mike Doll.
For a deeper dive:
AP, LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, Weather Channel, AccuWeather, New York Times, Slideshow: New York Times; Climate Signals Background: Wildfires, 2020 Western wildfire season
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