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Portland General Electric's 5-megawatt lithium-ion energy storage[/caption] The era of modern wind and solar energy began decades ago when the first commercial wind turbines and solar panels started generating electricity. We experienced a transformation into a new phase several years ago (5-6 years back) when wind and solar power plants began to compete price-wise with fossil fuel power plants, particularly in terms of megawatts. Since 2000, compared to last year, the capacity and output of solar power plants increased 18.7 times, while for wind power plants this growth was even significantly larger.
Solving Stability If you have a large number of wind and solar power plants distributed over large areas, they tend to balance out drops in grid supply to some extent, but even so, the supply remains considerably unstable. This flaw should now be addressed by the Gigafactory. Drone flight over Tesla Gigafactory [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuDfFmUcJso&feature=youtu.be\[/embed\] [caption id="attachment_176689108" align="alignright" width="300"]
Tesla's gigantic Gigafactory in Nevada[/caption] Just as GE under Elon Musk's leadership announced its intention to build "huge battery farms," Tesla announced the creation of Tesla Energy division, through which it launched the sale of batteries for home and industrial solar energy storage called "Powerwall." Tesla may soon become the most visible player in this newly emerging industry, but it is not and will not be the only one. GE has in recent months announced that it is already working on storage projects totaling 39 MWh, including one 30 MWh project located in Imperial Valley, California, approximately 100 miles east of San Diego.
Another innovation is replacing lithium-ion batteries with liquid metal technology, for a significantly better price/performance ratio. But more on that next time.
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