PGE puff piece on battery in Morrow County
Storage batteries near the grid nexus of an old coal plant. Sounds like a wizard idea, wot?
Well, Oregon's largest public futility just brought 30MW of battery onto the grid, near our old coal power site, adjacent to wind and solar, and bills it as the 'nation's largest'.
Yawn.
The Portland Metro (excluding Clark County WA just across the Columbia River since, well, Washington has their own nuclear power plant) uses 22,648,283 megawatt-hours of electricity yearly, according the per-county stats at http://findenergy.com/or/ - that means this 30 megawatt battery complex can keep the area's lights on for, how long after dark? 30 Megawatts divided by 43 Megawatts a minute (22,648,283/(365.24*24*60)) = not very long at all (41 seconds, maybe)..
And, wind fails, too. For a long time.
But didn't I just mention the mighty Columbia River and its extensive hydropower system? Well, our power hungry neighbor to the south is running dry... and they have 55 votes in Congress, including the Speaker of the House. We have nine, and Washington has 12. Oops, there goes our remaining power...
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