US grid adds batteries at 10x the rate of natural gas in first half of 2024
US grid adds batteries at 10x the rate of natural gas in first half of 2024
By year's end, 96 percent of the US's grid additions won't add carbon to the atmosphere.
We put in 10kwh of batteries in Feb of this year with our solar panel installation. So I suppose I might be part that headline's statistic. April was the last time we had a monthly electrical bill. Last month we ripped out our aging gas furnace and put in a cold climate heat pump. One week after we had the natural gas disconnected permanently from the house. Our cars are charged on sunlight. We're doing what we can do de-carbonize.
Batteries and gas aren't really comparable so I'm guessing this means batteries are expanded at a rate 10x higher than natural gas is being expanded, which makes sense because natural gas is such a mature staple that it doesn't have that much opportunity growth.
Batteries are also not an energy source, but storage.
(Yeah I guess that's technically true of all energy sources, but batteries are more like a tank than a consumable...)
Of course adding batteries to store energy from off peak renewables to ready them for the peak is the point of this, but I would point out I don't think anything prevents charging batteries from fossil-fuel generated electricity. I wouldn't be surprised if an economic equilibrium dictates this to be the case, even.
I think batteries will be highly valued equipment as a smoothing function to help reduce heavy load wear on any kind of generating equipment to help with peak loads, regardless of what's charging them... possibly allowing fossil burning plants to run closer to a base load level at all times.
This is even more impressive when you realize that in some regions of the country, power companies are adding zero renewables. TVA, the biggest power provider in the country, is all-in on natural gas, allegedly because its board members get incentives from natural gas providers and refuse to expand predicted demand with solar, wind, or forced geothermal.
Good! Keep adding them!