Solar plus batteries help keep the lights on during recent heatwave
-Ocotober 8,2022-
Residential “rooftop” solar panel installations are heading higher this year according to the website Construction Monitor. Permits for residential solar units in Tulare, Kings, Fresno and Madera counties number 16,126 through September of this year, valued at nearly $400 million. That is up from 13,216 permits over the same time in 2021 and nearly double what it was in the first 9 months of 2020 when 8529 solar installations were permitted.
Who is the top solar installation company in the four-county area? Sunrun leads the pack with 3749 systems installed at an average price of $18,860, the lowest per-unit price of any of the top 15 companies doing work in the Central Valley. In terms of number of units, Solgen Electric is number two with 1052 units installed so far this year. Solar Negotiators are third with 794 units.
Among the reasons to go solar,homeowners can count on solar energy systems as a proven savings and investment tool with locked-in returns over 25 years.
San Francisco-based Sunrun advertises that “you can be your own electric company” adding that with net metering you can balance the amount of electricity you draw from the grid, and how much excess solar electricity you push into it. “So when you use less electricity than you make, you get credit from the utility company.”
Sunrun focuses on a power purchase agreement business model where Sunrun installs and maintains a solar system on a customers home, then sells power to the customer at an agreed upon rate for a 20- or 25-year term. This business model allows property owners to install solar at no upfront cost, but without the benefits (such as tax breaks) or some risks that come with being the owner of the system. The company partners with Costco and The Home Depot to market their products inside the stores. In 2021, the company installed solar systems capable of generating 792 megawatts of power.
Sunrun and others pair battery units with their panels.Having both home solar as well as a linked battery unit does make your household a socially-useful electric company, it turns out, helping to keep California’s lights on when there is a power issue in the area we all learned recently.
An analysis by the California Solar and Storage Association (CALSSA) shows that California had more than 80,000 customer-sited batteries connected to the electric grid capable of providing 900 MW of solar power.
“The biggest battery in the world is located in garages around California and they are helping keep the lights on for everyone”
While not all the batteries were set to discharge during the peak hours of 4 p.m. – 9 p.m. on September 6, an estimated 76% were, which as a fleet, were capable of providing up to 684 MW of power at any given moment. CALSSA estimates that 50% of these batteries’ aggregate power was put into use during peak hours, providing approximately 340 MW of power. To put this into perspective, 340 MW is more than a mid-sized power plant.
“The biggest battery in the world is located in garages around California and they are helping keep the lights on for everyone”
When California suffered rolling blackouts in August 2020, California had 30,000 distributed batteries with the potential to discharge 500 MW of power. In just two years, 50,000 consumers added 400 MW of clean sun-charged battery power. The current 900 MW of distributed batteries in California is nearly the size of Diablo Canyon’s Unit 1.
“The biggest battery in the world is located in garages around California and they are helping keep the lights on for everyone,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, CALSSA executive director. “While it goes largely unrecognized by utilities and grid operators, these consumer investments in clean energy played a crucial role during this week’s heat wave helping keep the lights on not just for the homeowners and businesses who made the investment but for everyone.”
In February 2022, Ford announced a partnership that makes Sunrun the official installer of its bidirectional charging station for the F-150 Lightning, allowing customers to charge their truck at home, but also use the vehicle battery for backup power during a grid outage.