A Huge $2 Billion 'Solar + Storage' Project in California Powers Up (electrek.co) 71
One of America's largest solar + battery storage projects "is now fully online in Mojave, California," reports Electrek:
Arevon Energy's Eland Solar-plus-Storage Project combines 758 megawatts (MWdc) of solar with 300 MW/1,200 megawatt hours of battery storage. Eland 1 reached commercial operation in December 2024, and Eland 2 recently commenced full operation. The two combined comprise 1.36 million solar panels and 172 lithium iron phosphate batteries (LFP). Combined, the Eland 1 & 2 projects will be able to power more than 266,000 homes annually, and overall, can provide 7% of the total electricity requirements for the city of Los Angeles.
"Arevon's Eland Solar-plus-Storage Project alone will ... push the city's clean energy share above 60%, a major milestone in LA's transition to being powered by 100% clean energy by 2035," said Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
Eland 1 & 2 created around 1,000 jobs to construct the project, and it's expected to disburse more than $36 million in local government payments throughout its lifetime.
The article points out that Arevon Energy "has more than 4,500 MW of solar and battery storage projects operating across 17 states — and more than 6 GW of new projects in its pipeline."
The article points out that Arevon Energy "has more than 4,500 MW of solar and battery storage projects operating across 17 states — and more than 6 GW of new projects in its pipeline."
summary is notable (Score:5, Informative)
758 megawatts (MWdc) of solar with 300 MW/1,200 megawatt hours of battery storage.
This is notable for having electrical measurements that actually make sense. I don't know how that happened.
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They measure the total capacity in homes per year so you'll be ok.
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Indeed. Not treating power (MW) as energy (MWh) or just not specifying is a first for me. I've even had to complain in games.
With this we know that the station can provide around 400MW during the day, then 300MW for 4 hours at night. Most likely 300MW from twilight until about 8 pm, then tapering off until picking back up in the morning.
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4 hours is fine enough to avoid the duck curve problem.
Re: summary is notable (Score:2)
So presumably only 50,000 in the winter when it counts? Or summer i don't know
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LA power grid strained by air conditioning (Score:3)
Los Angeles has even weather year round.
Air conditioning causes summertime electrical demand to be much higher than wintertime. It's not an even tradeoff. There have been, and continue to be, problems for the power grid as a result. They are becoming increasingly reliant upon people with smart thermostats who are willing to let the power company turn off their AC remotely. Offering hefty discounts for people who sign up.
Re: LA power grid strained by air conditioning (Score:2)
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Minisplit heat pump systems are changing this, LA is a great spot to install them.
Yep, I'm in a zone where heat pumps will have optimal conditions nearly all year. Only brief windows where they will be sub optimal, and even that not terribly so. If, when, the current AC dies its an option.
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https://www.researchgate.net/f... [researchgate.net]
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"Much" higher? It's not all that much
My unit of measurement is brownouts at work. :-)
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Re: summary is notable (Score:2)
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It states that it is 758 MW DC. This would be the peak achievable wattage at ideal time of day, probably around noon.
DC to AC ratio is often less than 1. The duration it can sustain is dependent on time of year, latitude, and weather.
My 23 kW DC system delivers about 16 kW for about 2-3 hours currently in summertime in northern California, for ramble.
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I meant that DC to AC is often more than 1, for economic reasons.
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If they have tracking panels then the peak output can be much longer.
I have a flat roof and was sort of wondering if I could get motorized panels on there. Hobby project, probably not really worth the investment and maintenance, but the kits from China have been getting decent reviews. A simpler option is manually adjustable stands that you can switch a couple of times a year to take advantage of the lower winter sun.
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Yes, this single line. We enjoyed false comfort. Then it's followed by
> power more than 266,000 homes annually
Don't they also power the same more than 266 000 homes hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and biannually?
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Don't they also power the same more than 266 000 homes hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and biannually?
While your point is quite correct, technically speaking they are also correct. That "annually" is not actually wrong, it's just completely pointless, meaningless, and extraneous.
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Technically speaking, they are not incorrect. They are also not correct.
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Technically speaking, they are not incorrect. They are also not correct.
Exactly! Glad we got this all cleared up. :)
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This is notable for having electrical measurements that actually make sense. I don't know how that happened.
I was shocked too. Planned to comment on that myself. Don't worry though, we still have cause to be pedantic. Notice that the summary criminally does not capitalize "Watt" when it writes "megawatts".
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One important metric you can derive right away is, this system operates at .25C. That is, at peak capacity it will discharge the entire store in four hours. Most likely can charge from zero to full in exactly the same time. I like that ratio - lots of conservative, less to blow up. Home solar would be more likely to operate at 1C. Mobile at 3C or higher. More likely to catch fire but less to damage.
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758 megawatts (MWdc) of solar with 300 MW/1,200 megawatt hours of battery storage.
This is notable for having electrical measurements that actually make sense. I don't know how that happened.
Spot on.
How may Olympic swimming pools of batteries is this?
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758 megawatts (MWdc) of solar with 300 MW/1,200 megawatt hours of battery storage.
This is notable for having electrical measurements that actually make sense. I don't know how that happened.
And given these numbers, that means if there are clouds (admittedly rare in Mojave), it generates at half it's nominal daytime capacity, and the batteries last for four hours at that half capacity.
That's an impressive amount of juice but still not really good enough for base load generation. It's great for peak power in mid-afternoon.
What's the ROI? (Score:2)
Re:What's the ROI? (Score:4, Insightful)
Solar facilities with battery daily load management is exactly what California needs more of to displace natural gas plants. Currently only 28% of its annual electricity usage is from solar power, so it has hardly "overflowing", except during certain peak production hours before the evening demand peak, hence the integral batteries of this plant.
Coal and Oil first, Natural Gas only after those (Score:2, Troll)
Solar facilities with battery daily load management is exactly what California needs more of to displace natural gas plants.
Wrong. You displace natural gas last with respect to fossil fuels. First you displace coal, which California has done with respect to power generation. Then you displace oil, which California has not done. Worry about natural gas after oil is displaced, even displacing oil with natural gas would be an improvement.
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Looking, California only uses oil for 0.03% of its electricity generation. [ca.gov]
I'd call that 'displaced', they probably use more oil lubing the natural gas turbines and generators than they burn for power. They're also still getting more power than that from coal.
It is literally their smallest source of energy for electricity.
That level of oil power is probably having hospitals and such fire up their generators during the worst stress times for the grid.
Not an especial concern, hospitals can consider batteries
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Looking, California only uses oil for 0.03% of its electricity generation. [ca.gov]
Whatever the non-zero value is, natural gas would generate less greenhouse gas. It makes sense to displace oil first.
I'd call that 'displaced', they probably use more oil lubing the natural gas turbines and generators than they burn for power. They're also still getting more power than that from coal.
If so, that should be displaced before natural gas as well.
That level of oil power is probably having hospitals and such fire up their generators during the worst stress times for the grid.
Natural gas generators would be a better option. Both for greenhouse gas and availability There is probably a natural gas line running through the street in front of the hospital. Not so for oil.
I'm arguing nothing more than remove the dirtiest sources first.
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It was only 65GWh. 7.4MW average. The single project here is 100 times that.
Insignificant, and it is like replacing horses with steam, or steam with internal combustion. The few spots it is used in are likely very hard to replace with a different power source. Like with cars, it is probably better to replace those units with a different power source when it is time to replace them anyways.
The proper metric here, id argue, isn't CO2 per kWh(oil is only about 25% worse than CH4), it is dollars per ton of
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Whatever the non-zero value is, natural gas would generate less greenhouse gas. It makes sense to displace oil first.
No actual disagreement with that as a general statement, but the GP pointed out just how low the usage actually is. Statements like the above have to have a point of diminishing return standard applied to them. With just about any effort you have to recognize that the last tiny bit may require a lot more effort or difficulty to achieve. As an example, consider the goal of removing 100% of the water from alcohol. You can approach that goal with multiple rounds of distillation, but the azeotropic limit will s
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Re: What's the ROI? (Score:2)
It smooths out the peaks and you can sell power to residential customers instead of dumping onto a grid during excess supply from all the other solar panels. There is a pretty large difference between what a solar panel produces in the late morning versus late afternoon. There is a big potential upside to having power to sell when everyone elses panels are winding down.
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Don't forget to subtract the electricity used during the daytime to charge the battery.
Why? They came up with 2500 MWh produced and $80/MWh with no difference in price for electricity used directly and electricity used from the battery. There is also 1200 MWh capacity on the battery storage.
Consider:
2500 MWh - 1200 MWh = 1300 MWh during the day and 1200 MWh in battery storage. If you sell that at $80/MWh, that's $104K during the day and $96K at night from the battery, which adds up to $200K.
If you store only 600 MWh from the battery during the day that's:
2500 MWh - 600 MWh = 1900 MWh during t
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I'm not actually sure where you are getting 2500 MWh
Literally from the GP comment that you replied to complaining that they did not subtract the electricity used to charge the batteries. It's the source you were literally complaining about. I am making no claim that their numbers were correct. It was clearly back of the envelope stuff. All I am saying is that they presented a model and some numbers and you specifically claimed that they left out a calculation that is actually unnecessary in the model they presented. You are free to present a better model, be
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The residential price in California is already $.30/kWh (or $300/MWh).
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Power prices are higher than that in Cali, so they can probably get away with charging more than $.08 per kWh. That being said, I don't know what other grid-level suppliers are charging per kWh. Residential power in Cali is around $.30 per kWh.
Also you're dismissing ongoing operational costs for this facility.
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That's why I said "I don't know what other grid-level suppliers are charging per kWh". I cited the one figure I did know from available sources. Though if gas turbine operators are charging more than solar for anything other than plants operating as peakers then I'd like to know why.
In any case, this would have been a great opportunity for someone with better data to chime in and say "acshually here's what other suppliers charge" but sadly nobody has stepped in with that information.
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The timing for this seems poor as California is currently overflowing with solar energy. At least the storage capacity will help shift some of that from (currently) useless to useful. Maybe they're hoping to build a few AI centers with it? I wasn't able to dig up any plans for that with a casual search, though. As it stands, I don't think they'll be able to recoup the costs of the project within the lifetime of the equipment unless the price of energy suddenly skyrockets.
My first thoughts as well. What are we going to do with all that extra power? As it is now, PG&E (or rather it's customers) are paying other states to take it away. If we are going to continue with this mess, what we really need is just storage and not production.
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What are we going to do with all that extra power?
Just scroll forward or back a couple of stories to see articles about how the power grid is constrained due to AI and datacentres. Quite notable 1.2GWh of storage can provide a lot of continuous power for continuous loads.
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AI and datacentres.
Really does not seem like a good use to me.
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Really does not seem like a good use to me.
Expect them to be built as long as it is profitable to build them.
I'm a bit confused on the hate data centers are getting. When it comes to AI I can kind of understand as a lot of that power ends up being used for novelty image generation, copyright violations, and so much else that is wasteful, trivial, or potentially illegal. A data center can mean a lot of things though. It's been quite the time and money saver to have companies shift their data processing from in-house computers to data centers that
NO, CA is not overflowing with solar energy (Score:2)
The timing for this seems poor as California is currently overflowing with solar energy.
That is not true. There have been, and continue to be, problems for the power grid as a result of summertime air conditioning use. They are becoming increasingly reliant upon people with smart thermostats who are willing to let the power company turn off their AC remotely. Offering hefty discounts for people who sign up.
The 2035 mandate for EV only sales will also increase demand greatly. California is only "overflowing" with solar energy if you are looking at past demand.
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Now, grid problems I can understand. These are challenging times for the grid as consumption spikes due to evolving technology and state policy; however, supersaturating the
Re: NO, CA is not overflowing with solar energy (Score:3)
Coast to coast HVDC would solve a lot of problems and bring wind and solar into the national grid. A 3-4 hour difference in the suns position relative between coasts would dramatically alter the economics around solar.
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Coast to coast HVDC would solve a lot of problems and bring wind and solar into the national grid.
I see greater value in 24/7 power produced by nuclear fission with thermal energy storage to even out the peaks and valleys of power demand.
As shown many times in California the long power lines to move electricity from where it is produced to when it is consumed adds to grid vulnerability. Those wires are out of necessity running overhead to where they are exposed to damage from wind, weather, trees, low flying aircraft, birds, small furry woodland creatures, and more. Then is the damage these wires can
Wind and solar are inevitable (Score:2)
One of the things about the ruling class is they think about their future. When you're a working stiff like us it's basically impossible to think about the future because you're too desperate in the hear and now. And that is by design
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I knew that they used these to power satellites and thought that some day they would be cheap enough t
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The big energy companies are looking at their business shrinking significantly. Solar and batteries are cheap and getting cheaper, and more than that they are a great investment with a better return than pretty much anything else. The UK is mandating solar on new builds, and other places will follow.
If they don't go along with it, it will just push more and more people to stop relying on the grid entirely, or creating their own micro grids.
That's a lot of panels and maintenance (Score:2)
1.36 million solar panels is a lot. I would love to see some photos of what that many panels actually look like and how much space it takes up. The photo in the article is clearly not that many panels. My first thought was that maybe the article meant that there were 1.36 million solar cells instead of panels as typical panels are built with 60, 72, or 96 cells per panel. This would result in a total number of panels in the 14 to 22 thousand range, which seems like a more comprehensible deployment. However
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And most open rooftops, parking lot canopies with solar exposure, or open space on properties can host PV arrays as do most new schools, commercial buildings, parking lots and apartment c
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It's out there on the web.
Just look for it.
You can start by going to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) website and looking through all the references and links.
Here is a link to the NREL Annual Technology Baseline (ATB) page for Utility-Scale PV: https://atb.nrel.gov/electrici... [nrel.gov]
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1.36 million solar panels is a lot.
Actually it is not a lot. The plant is rated for 758 megawatts, which is a pretty mid sized power plant. For comparison I thought I'd look how much power a typical utility scale windmill is rated to produce, and I found a couple places that put it at about one megawatt which makes the comparison easy. For some more context I thought I'd look at what a heavy duty truck might produce, such as a Ford F-250, Tesla Cybertruck, or a typical school bus, and that's about 250 kW though that's open to interpretati
glow ball (Score:2)
Glow ball warming now will be decreasing starting tomorrow.
Re: glow ball (Score:2)
The rate of increase isn't accellerating quite as much.
Lucky humans (Score:1)