Solar power and energy storage (batteries) have fallen in price enough that they’re now competing with the cost of natural gas peaker plants in specific markets. New analysis is suggesting 10GW of natural gas peaker plants are at risk through 2027 in the USA specifically.
Other, more aggressive suggestions don’t see a place for gas peaker plants after 2020 in the USA. It seems the age of the renewable energy plus energy storage power plant is upon us.
Part of the use of Tesla’s 100MW/129MWh project is an example of this in the real world. So is the collection of projects in California that partially replaced the natural gas plant at Aliso Canyon (which Tesla also participated in). Elsewhere in California there are discussions to replace two additional peaker plants in the near future, and one large gas power plant, that regulators say are systemically important to the grid with batteries.
The two Tesla battery power plants – and peaker plants in general – are participating in an electricity market that pays for filling gaps with fast response time electricity during times when electricity demand changes (like in California as the sun goes down and everyone goes home).
A report in Minnesota suggested that right now, the net cost of a solar power plus storage power plant is cheaper than a natural gas peaker power plant – as seen in the right two columns in the graph below. In fact, energy storage alone – without the cheap electricity coming from a renewable plant – is almost the same cost as a peaker plant.
Major CEOs of power companies have also suggested, in a much more aggressive time frame, that peaker plants will go away entirely by 2020 in the USA.
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