World's Biggest Battery to Boost Solar in Texas Oil Country

[thackney]

World's Biggest Battery to Boost Solar in Texas Oil Country
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-13/texas-may-get-a-new-boast-amid-plans-for-world-s-largest-battery
February 14, 2019

The world’s largest battery could soon be storing solar energy deep in the heart of Texas oil country.

The 495-megawatt storage system would be built in tandem with a solar farm of the same size in Borden County, Texas. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas Inc., which operates most of the state’s grid, posted the details in a chart that shows the state’s battery storage will surge more than sixfold to 584 megawatts when the projects are completed in 2021.

Bigger batteries are being developed to help make the electricity produced through solar and wind power more efficient, even when the sun goes down and it gets less breezy. Recent battery-backed solar projects have, at most, 100 megawatts of panels and 30 megawatts of storage, said Yayoi Sekine, an analyst at BloombergNEF.

"This would be about five times that,” Sekine said in an interview....

[IsailedawayfromFR]

I looked up this guy who founded the company undertaking this project, Kimber Sheldon of Intersect Power LLC.

I watched the below video of a presentation he made which I found interesting in content.

Although he is an obvious climate change proponent, he at least realizes fundamental problems with implementation, such as capital funding of projects and how technology can be implemented, items which rabid environmentalists overlook.  He presents some examples which I found refreshingly pragmatic in nature compared to the typical environmental screed, including the need to remain using natural gas.

A few minutes long, but I consider worth viewing for those interested.

Clean Energy - Hype vs. Reality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icgvnS7Od0I&feature=youtu.be