Batteries the biggest player again as renewable records smashed in California, reach 156 pct of load

The astonishing pace of the green energy transition in California appears to be hitting hyper-drive this spring, as big batteries once again emerge as the dominant player in the state’s evening power peaks, and as renewables smash all previous records.

Last week Renew Economy reported on the milestone when battery storage became, for the first time, the largest supply source in the evening peak of what is one of the world’s largest grids. On Tuesday, it discharged more than 6 GW for the first time, providing up to a 25 per cent share of supply, and was the biggest provider on the grid for two hours.

Battery storage repeated the dose on Friday, becoming the top provider in the evening peak for a brief period, before doing it again for even longer periods on both Saturday and Sunday, and posting new output and market share records on the way.

Saturday was a big day in the California grid, with renewables grabbing a record peak share of 156 per cent of local demand at 2.15pm, when solar alone accounted for 122 per cent of local demand.

According to Mark Jacobsen, from Stanford University, the output of wind, water (hydro) and solar alone was enough to meet all California’s demand for more than nine hours, and averaged 85.4 per cent over the 24 hour period. It was the 36th of 44 days when wind, water and solar met all the state’s demand for at last half an hour.

On Saturday, battery storage was the top supplier on the state grid between 7.15pm and 8.35pm, relegating gas to fourth place behind wind and hydro.

On Sunday its dominance was even greater – setting a new output record of 6.5 GW, a new record share of 26.5 per cent of supply, and ranking as the the number one supplier for the grid from 6.45pm to 8.25pm.

California only has around 7GW of battery capacity in its grid, although the local grid authority expects this to be nearly doubled in the next 12 months.

That will help soak up some of the excess renewable capacity, which has regularly been pushing the state to a “negative” net load of more than 5 GW, leading to imports of more than 6GW, and still causing high levels of curtailment.