November 16
PG&E Nabs Approval for World’s Largest Batteries
Top consumer smart grid news hand-selected and brought to you by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative.
Member News
CPUC recently approved four energy storage projects for PG&E to replace retiring gas generators, including two batteries that would be the largest in the world. The CPUC granted approval for a total of 567.5 MW / 2,270 MWh of storage, including a 300 MW / 1,200 MWh project from Vistra Energy and a 182.5 MW / 730 MWh project from Tesla that the utility would own. Those batteries, once completed, would be the two largest in service.
Alabama Power recently announced that it is collaborating with homebuilders to construct energy-efficient homes that feature advanced energy products and home automation. Vivint Smart Home is partnering with Alabama Power to equip each home with smart home technology including voice-activated security, smart locks, lights, cameras and garage door control. Each home will feature Google Home smart speakers, Nest Learning thermostats and advanced energy-efficient building features.
SMUD and national homebuilder D.R. Horton are partnering to build 104 all-electric homes in Sacramento. Under its All-Electric Smart Home program, SMUD, the regional community-owned utility, will provide rebates worth up to $466,000 to D.R. Horton for the installation of electric appliances and equipment at two projects.
Mississippi's largest private electrical utility wants to build a $138 million solar farm in the Mississippi Delta region. Entergy Mississippi said last Thursday that it’s hiring a unit of Canadian Solar to build the facility in Sunflower County, pending regulatory approval. The contractor would build the 100 MW facility on 1,000 acres near Ruleville starting in 2021, with completion projected for 2022.
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Industry News
Arizona public power utility SRP and NREL are launching one of the largest ever studies of residential battery energy systems. The study will be based on a new SRP program that provides $150 per DC-kilowatt-hour, or up to $1,800, for 4,500 residential customers who install qualifying lithium ion battery systems. SRP expects about 275 customers will participate in the study.
Average costs for wind and solar energy can undercut existing coal generation even without subsidies, according to analysis from the research firm Lazard. The latest version of Lazard's levelized cost of energy (LCOE) analysis finds that U.S. onshore wind energy costs average between $26/MWh and $56/MWh without subsidies, while utility-scale solar averages between $36/MWh and $44/MWh.
In a fishing village south of Tampa called Cortez, a new community of small homes will run on solar power to reach a “net zero” energy footprint–using Google Home to help optimize how the power is used. “It’s going to be a grid-interactive, grid-optimized virtual power plant,” says Blake Richetta, senior vice president and head of U.S. operations at Sonnen, which is making batteries that will store solar power for the 148 new homes in the new development.
As a host of technologies are utilized in new ways to balance the electric grid, the definition of "demand response" is becoming more nebulous. But, however defined, one thing is certain: As a resource, it is growing more important. FERC staff recently issued an annual analysis of advanced metering infrastructure and demand response, concluding both are on the rise.
