Largest storage battery in the world

[ThomasD]

World’s largest solar-powered battery unveiled at FPL’s Parrish plant with light show​

James A. Jones Jr.
Tue, December 14, 2021, 9:29 AM


Solar panels only put power into the electric grid so long as the sun shines. It’s a classic case of use it or lose it.
Unless, that is, those solar panels are at the Manatee Solar Energy Center in Parrish, which is home to the world’s largest solar-powered battery.
Monday night, FPL showed what a battery that occupies 40 acres of land — roughly 30 football fields — can do. After the sun set, FPL put on a spectacular light and sound show with lasers stabbing into the night sky and synchronized lighted drones maneuvering into the outline of Florida, the FPL corporate emblem, and more.
Powering the show was solar energy stored in the massive battery — actually 132 battery containers, each with its own inverter to convert direct current into the alternating current used in homes and businesses.

It was FPL’s way of showing that solar power can be stored and then used when it is needed most — at night or during a cloudy day.
To put it in perspective, the huge battery can power approximately 329,000 homes for more than two hours. It has the same punch as 100 million iPhone batteries.
“It’s been a momentous year for clean energy in Florida. FPL opened the year by formally shutting down its last coal-fired plant in the state (in Indiantown) and now we’re closing the year by shattering a world record and commissioning the largest solar-powered battery in the world,” FPL president and CEO Eric Silagy said.
“Since embarking on the largest solar expansion in the nation, the company has also installed more than 13 million solar panels and is already 45% of the way toward reaching our ‘30-by-30’ goal to install 30 million solar panels across the state of Florida by 2030,” Silagy told an invited crowd of community leaders.
In addition to the Parrish solar plant, FPL has three other solar plants in Manatee County: at South Fork near Duette, Elder Branch and Willow, FPL spokesman Andrew Sutton said.
The familiar smokestacks of FPL’s natural gas-powered plant in Parrish still stand, but those stacks and the older plant it serves face decommissioning at some date in the future, Sutton said.
In fact, the gas-fired Parrish plant will be shut down Jan. 1, but likely will remain on stand by for a while, Sutton said.
Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s chief financial officer, was among those who attended Monday night’s unveiling and professed to being a technology nerd, and said the huge battery deserves a mention in Guinness World Records.
Carol Whitmore, at-large Manatee County commissioner, was also impressed by what the power of 409 megawatts can do.
“It’s the largest solar battery in the world. How cool is that?” Whitmore said.
FPL says its solar-powered battery is the world’s largest when measured by total output and capacity per hour.
When the sun’s rays are strongest, the battery system will store extra solar energy produced by the Manatee Solar Energy Center and feed that power to the grid when it’s needed most.
By deploying energy from the battery when there is a higher demand for electricity, FPL said it will offset the need to run other power plants, reducing emissions and saving customers money on fuel costs.
FPL commissioned the solar plant in Parrish in 2017, generating 74.5 megawatts of power, and making it, with power plants in Charlotte and DeSoto counties, the largest in the country when it opened.
Silagy, who also attended the 2017 commissioning, noted then that when President Barack Obama helped commission the DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center in Arcadia in 2009, it was the largest in the country.
In 2017, each of FPL’s new solar energy centers generated 74.5 megawatts of power, enough to light up 15,000 homes. In contrast, the Arcadia plant generated 25 megawatts of power, enough to power 3,000 homes, a testimony to the continuing growth of solar energy in the United States.

12/13/2021--A spectacular sound and light show powered by a solar-powered battery wowed spectators Monday night at FPL’s solar energy plant in Parrish. The power for the night show was collected from the sun during the day and stored in battery, the world’s largest.

12/13/2021--FPL workers stand next to a solar-powered battery in Parrish that occupies space to equivalent to about 30 football fields.

11/13/2021--The days are numbered for FPL’s natural gas-powered electric generating plant in Parrish as more and more solar plants come on line.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

BTW that article can be found at https://www.bradenton.com/news/business/article256576961.html

And there's a lot more hybrid solar coming to the US grid. Net battery power additions are planned to exceed net fossil additions over the next 12 months.

Atlhough it mentions night, it's really about the evening peak at this point.

 

[21miDay]

I am happy to see that the length of time is stated along with the number of homes.

the huge battery can power approximately 329,000 homes for more than two hours.

Too often this detail is not spelled out and people reading the article may not know that there is still more of a gap to fill.

 

[nwdiver]

I am happy to see that the length of time is stated along with the number of homes.

Too often this detail is not spelled out and people reading the article may not know that there is still more of a gap to fill.

The real purpose of storage isn't to 'fill gaps' it's to time shift renewable generation. There isn't yet enough renewable generation that needs to be time shifted. Why spend $1M to time shift 300MWh/yr worth of renewables when you can spend $1M to just produce ~1000MWh/yr of additional energy from renewables. When storage starts to make sense we'll start to see real deployments of storage.

 

[Ampster]

When storage starts to make sense we'll start to see real deployments of storage.

I am seeing on new solar farms that storage is increasingly included. Perhaps that gives them downside protection against curtailment and better pricing for times when the solar is not producing. These are for profit investments which I assume are based on market trends.

 

[21miDay]

The real purpose of storage isn't to 'fill gaps' it's to time shift renewable generation. There isn't yet enough renewable generation that needs to be time shifted. Why spend $1M to time shift 300MWh/yr worth of renewables when you can spend $1M to just produce ~1000MWh/yr of additional energy from renewables. When storage starts to make sense we'll start to see real deployments of storage.

True. I didn't mean that the gap could/should be filled by adding storage. I wanted to point out that there is a gap. I get the impression that there are some people that overlook that and think that storage is the solution.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I am seeing on new solar farms that storage is increasingly included. Perhaps that gives them downside protection against curtailment and better pricing for times when the solar is not producing. These are for profit investments which I assume are based on market trends.

The economics of solar (including current subsidies) push them to add storage more than others.

The production curve means that they always have to balance inverter/grid connection size/cost against the ability to feed generation into the grid.
Production varies by season, weather and over time as the panel output declines (~0.9% per year).

So they oversize, and it's increased over time as panel prices have fallen.
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy21osti/80427.pdf (see page 28).
So the amount of "free" energy is increasing.

Now enter storage.
Storage means they can indeed increase the value of their energy by time shifting.
Currently there's free energy, but in solar-saturated markets, the price drops during periods of peak generation so they'll have cheap energy they'd like to move as well.
If generation and storage costs continue to fall, we should see some further increases in oversizing to sell or store.
But then in the longer term, as the highest-priced services and generation is picked off, we may see that storage fall away in favor of demand-response.

 

[Ampster]

we may see that storage fall away in favor of demand-response.

If you mean demand-response by consumers that so far has seemed like a failure. Most consumers seem unwilling to shift loads with the exception of most of the posters on this forum.
I would love a system that would send me a signal that there is excess capacity and I could put load on the system to avoid solar curtailment and take advantage of lower rates. The easiest loads for me would be charging my EVs or the batteries on my hybid inverter, which of course are batteries. Next would be my heat pump water heater and my A/C heat pump to cool or heat my house to store that energy.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

If you mean demand-response by consumers that so far has seemed like a failure. Most consumers seem unwilling to shift loads with the exception of most of the posters on this forum.
I would love a system that would send me a signal that there is excess capacity and I could put load on the system to avoid solar curtailment and take advantage of lower rates. The easiest loads for me would be charging my EVs or the batteries on my hybid inverter, which of course are batteries. Next would be my heat pump water heater and my A/C heat pump to cool or heat my house to store that energy.

Demand-response isn't so obvious when you don't have EVs.
In lots of hot places it's "turn down your AC".

But if EVs are as successful as I expect there will have to be more ubiquitous TOU pricing and smart tariffs.
The UK already has a number of mandates related to smart charging.
This year, Norway is adding a residential demand charge.

Once you have a significant percentage of households with EVs, which are a large, flexible demand and storage appliance, it'll naturally lead to a seamless demand-response system.

 

[Ampster]

Once you have a significant percentage of households with EVs, which are a large, flexible demand and storage appliance, it'll naturally lead to a seamless demand-response system.

I look forward to that day. There is some hope despite the proposed Successor Tariff in California that will change the economics of rooftop solar. Perhaps your neck of the woods will be a leader. I think I read that one of your neighboring states had some progressive public utilities that were installing Tesla Powerwalls on a pilot program.