Moss Landing plant fire

[HarryN]

Again, who is installing PV facing the wrong direction? What is the right direction? How do you know? What modelling did you do to determine that? How do you know what the correct amount of storage is for a particular project? Did you evaluate the time based LMP pricing at that grid node? Did you do a life cycle cost analysis to establish the ratio of PV to storage? I can assure you that the project developers aren't stupid. They do all those things, and more, to configure their systems, because that's how they make their money.

I suspect that what you are thinking is the current approach was the approach 5 or 10 years ago when the duck curve was not nearly as deep as it is now, so midday energy production had much more value. No developer in his right mind would do that today, because they don't make any money by doing that.

With all due respect it's not the politicians that are oversimplifying, it's you. The politicians aren't telling the project developers which way to orient their PV arrays. They establish an electricity market that sends the right pricing signals and let the generators figure that out for themselves, as they should in a free market.

I have two test stands and run my off grid work shop from solar. So my experience is not identical to yours, but using your suggested configuration would require me to own a much larger battery pack and have many more panels than I use now to accomplish the same results.

I suggest that you attempt to model a vertical array with panels facing early morning and late afternoon and see what results you end up with. It certainly has less impact on projects that are intended for dual use agriculture, and the panels are largely self cleaning.

If you are getting push back, it is because your customers are not listening to what is acceptable / viable, vs just ruining the agricultural use of land.

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

Residents report health issues after Moss Landing battery facility fire

Moss Landing residents experience health symptoms following a battery plant fire, despite no measurable hydrogen fluoride detected.

www.ksbw.com

 

[PVGeezer]

I have two test stands and run my off grid work shop from solar. So my experience is not identical to yours, but using your suggested configuration would require me to own a much larger battery pack and have many more panels than I use now to accomplish the same results.

I suggest that you attempt to model a vertical array with panels facing early morning and late afternoon and see what results you end up with. It certainly has less impact on projects that are intended for dual use agriculture, and the panels are largely self cleaning.

If you are getting push back, it is because your customers are not listening to what is acceptable / viable, vs just ruining the agricultural use of land.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting any particular array orientation for utility scale projects in the current high solar penetration markets like CA. I'm not close enough to the current costs of the alternatives or to the present day wholesale pricing signals to presume to be able to say.

When I used to do this type of modelling (about 10-12 years ago) the duck curve was much less advanced than it is now, and PV was much more expensive. At that point north south oriented trackers were one of the more optimal solutions. They gave output peaks morning and afternoon as well as overall better plant utilization. And traded high cost PV for lower cost structural systems. I doubt that trackers like that would make sense today with much cheaper PV, but I might be wrong.

But here's my point. I do know how this kind of performance and economic analysis gets done. It's a well understood process in the industry and regularly used for this type of large scale project. Hundreds of millions of dollars are getting invested after all.

So I have confidence that the guys doing it are making the right decisions based on the data they have available, which includes knowing that they're not getting paid diddly for midday output. So if that were telling them to do east west facing vertical bifacials they would do that. Nobody is stopping them.

As for doing that kind of modeling myself at this point I think I'll pass. I no longer have access to the best software tools for one thing. Plus Im retired now and don't really want to spend time doing stuff for free that I used to get paid to do. Id rather fool around doing something I haven't done before, like build lithium batteries. Life is more interesting that way.

 

[teal95]

All of the solar farms I have seen (southern MI) are mounted on rails that run N-S, with linkages that rotate them from E to W.

 

[PVGeezer]

All of the solar farms I have seen (southern MI) are mounted on rails that run N-S, with linkages that rotate them from E to W.

That's a N-S horizontal single axis tracker. Very common on utility scale projects a few years ago when PV cost >> structure cost. Less favorable now that PV is so cheap. However with the duck curve belly growing as more solar gets installed its probably favoring a return to this type of system because it peaks in output early and late in the day.

Does everyone know what the duck curve is BTW?

Duck Curve

Even with trackers or vertical E-W bifacials you're never going to get rid of the duck "head" without storage because the peak net load occurs after sunset. As you can see the peak in CA occurs about 8pm so California is there already. Not much output at 8pm no matter how you point your array.

The trackers and EW facing systems can actually make the grid operators' problems worse because the ramp gets even steeper and harder to manage.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Not much output at 8pm no matter how you point your array.

Well clearly they need to put their arrays way out in the Pacific in another time zone. With large enough gauge wires and high enough voltage strings, the voltage drop shouldn't be too bad right?

 

[PVGeezer]

Well clearly they need to put their arrays way out in the Pacific in another time zone. With large enough gauge wires and high enough voltage strings, the voltage drop shouldn't be too bad right?

Run a HVDC line from Hawaii and put a giant array field in the saddle between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Pick up about 2.5 hours time shift.

Losses are only about 3.5% per 1000km on HVDC transmission lines so maybe about 10% for that distance. Not bad.

But the Hawaiians will never go for it.

 

[joeshmoe]

Well clearly they need to put their arrays way out in the Pacific in another time zone. With large enough gauge wires and high enough voltage strings, the voltage drop shouldn't be too bad right?

Somewhere near Hawaii should do it

 

[rlaggren]

Oh man.... don't get me started on how California has SOOOO mismanaged the power infrastructure. All of the regulations and controls, have effectively shut down some peaker plants and prevented the construction of other peaker plants. The result is the rolling blackouts that we get in the summer.

These utility-scale battery systems are in response to the shortage of conventional peaker power. The technology for Battery solutions may someday be up to the task of replacing Gas-fired peaker plants.... but it is not there yet. Meanwhile, Californians are living with 3rd world power reliability.

I have to say - not really. There are shutdowns in fire zones and brown out in a few areas in extreme weather - ie. gets hot and all the peeps turn on aircon. These are rare and most, going-on all, peeps never experience anything.

Are these oopsies something to be proud of? No, of course not. But maybe you never noticed, _nothing_ man-made is perfect/wonderful and it all has cost and maintenance issues. And peeps don't like cost and we don't like to do maintenance. Or is it different where you live?

IOW trashing basic human behavior is a waste of time. Pointing fingers piling on and stomping people doesn't help much. If you're in state, do something about the situation (ie. vote and organize and all that stuff). That's hard work and it easier to sip a brew and throw things.

As you say "don't get me started".

 

[SparkyJJO]

Or is it different where you live?

Actually yes it is. We aren't diverting needed water because of some claim of some fish that hasn't even been seen in years, nor do we have brownouts in the heat of summer (even when we had uncharacteristically hot ones), and generally we don't have mass amounts of underbrush piled up all over.

Basically we don't have the same level of self destructive stupidity in our state government, thankfully.

 

[SparkyJJO]

To put it another way, our governor is a bit of a neenerhead but even he wouldn't by policy let tinder pile up in a place at risk of a fire.

 

[Recovering EE]

Actually yes it is. We aren't diverting needed water because of some claim of some fish that hasn't even been seen in years, nor do we have brownouts in the heat of summer (even when we had uncharacteristically hot ones), and generally we don't have mass amounts of underbrush piled up all over.

Basically we don't have the same level of self destructive stupidity in our state government, thankfully.

The "water diversion for fish hampered the fire-fighting effort" is absolute hogwash. Sate water officials are just shaking their heads at the theatrics of the Army Corps of Engineer releases, that will have zero impact on *anything* besides depleting reserves that we'll need this summer. The downstream farmers simply don't need it, this time of year, and the reservoirs are full already.

It sounds like you're buying into the Trumpian bullshit that has zero basis in reality.

 

[Brucey]

Some life and property loss was probably inevitable but it seems that there we re two critical failures. One, failure to preposition units in the neighborhoods at highest risk like had been done in the past. Two, a reservoir specifically designed for fire fighting efforts was empty for maintenance. So water supply eventually ran out.

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

Moss Landing Battery Fire Leads to Health Fears, Evidence of Contamination and Concerns About Overreaction - Inside Climate News

Residents describe experiences of sore throats and other symptoms. The energy storage industry insists that this incident is an extreme outlier.

insideclimatenews.org

"Researchers have found an increase in heavy metals in nearby soils, and state utility regulators have issued a proposed rule aimed at improving safety at battery plants.."

Remember, we *eat* that stuff

 

[Recovering EE]

Some life and property loss was probably inevitable but it seems that there we re two critical failures. One, failure to preposition units in the neighborhoods at highest risk like had been done in the past. Two, a reservoir specifically designed for fire fighting efforts was empty for maintenance. So water supply eventually ran out.

No, it didn't. Hydrants went dry because the distribution pipes weren't designed with the capacity necessary to serve so many hydrants pulling full flow at once. There was plenty of water in the region.

It's like having a 20A breaker serving four 15A duplex outlets in a house. It's fine for running the TV and charging some phones, but try running four 1500W blow dryers at once. It ain't gonna work, but the circuit setup is to spec, and you won't know there's a problem until the morning after the daughter has a slumber party.

 

[SparkyJJO]

nd the reservoirs are full already.

You're joking right? At least one of them has been empty for around a year.

 

[Brucey]

No, it didn't. Hydrants went dry because the distribution pipes weren't designed with the capacity necessary to serve so many hydrants pulling full flow at once. There was plenty of water in the region.

It's like having a 20A breaker serving four 15A duplex outlets in a house. It's fine for running the TV and charging some phones, but try running four 1500W blow dryers at once. It ain't gonna work, but the circuit setup is to spec, and you won't know there's a problem until the morning after the daughter has a slumber party.

This reservoir was built to save Pacific Palisades. It was empty when the flames came

In late January 2024, after a series of rainstorms, a DWP property manager spotted a tear in the reservoir’s floating cover, according to internal emails reviewed by The Times.

www.latimes.com

117 million gallon capacity. Empty. There was enough water for the irst night but by the second day they were SOL because the system couldn't refill fast enough for demand.

 

[Recovering EE]

You're joking right? At least one of them has been empty for around a year.

It was down for maintenance. They cycle through all of them periodically, and it was that one's turn.

 

[SparkyJJO]

It was down for maintenance. They cycle through all of them periodically, and it was that one's turn.

Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better, I guess.

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

It was down for maintenance. They cycle through all of them periodically, and it was that one's turn.

1 year of maintenance and no work was done yet

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

As expected, but sooner than I thought.
The legal expenses will be covered by rate payers.

Lawsuit filed against Vistra and PG&E over Moss Landing battery facility fire

Community members have filed a lawsuit against Vistra Energy, PG&E and other defendants over the Moss Landing battery storage facility fire that occurred on Jan. 16.

www.ksbw.com

 

[PVGeezer]

As expected, but sooner than I thought.
The legal expenses will be covered by rate payers.

Lawsuit filed against Vistra and PG&E over Moss Landing battery facility fire

Community members have filed a lawsuit against Vistra Energy, PG&E and other defendants over the Moss Landing battery storage facility fire that occurred on Jan. 16.

www.ksbw.com

In this case the facility than burned up wasn't owned and operated by PG&E so they will certainly try to recover their legal fees from Vistra. We'll see if they're successful. Vistra's legal fees won't be covered by ratepayers because they're not a regulated utility, they're an independent power producer. So their shareholders will pay.

Interestingly enough the 700 million dollars in legal fees coming from PG&Es 2019 bankruptcy was paid by the shareholders. I think their earlier 2001 bankruptcy which "only" cost about 180 mil in legal fees was paid by deducting it for the funds due to PG&Es creditors from that fiasco.

 

[rhino]

Moss Landing fire leads to emergency regulations

Following the Moss Landing fire in Monterey County, local Californian counties are enacting regulation for battery energy storage systems (BESS).

pv-magazine-usa.com