- Jake Sessions
- Aug 16, 2021
- 2 min read
Question 1 – How much curtailment is there in CAISO today? Question 2 – Can’t this curtailment be used to generate green H2 instead of wasting the potential?
As part of the conversation behind my last LinkedIn post, the same client asked about “all the curtailment” of solar in CAISO and how there might be a good opportunity to convert “all that lost energy” into green H2.
I responded with a couple of points regarding that thinking:
1) The continued build out of battery storage (whether standalone or in hybrid renewable plants) will soon consume most, if not all, of the potential curtailments available today…and in the future
Curtailment levels of today, which will not be maintained (see the plots for the trends), do not support meaningful levels of H2 generated electricity (storage) – Example: the aggregated curtailment of Solar in CAISO in 2020 would produce only enough H2 to power one 500MW CCPP for less than 2 months of full load operation
Analysis into data from CAISO regarding the last few years of solar generation, curtailment, and battery deployment/charging & discharging yields a view of the trends that show the curtailment “issue” is being addressed with planned battery storage deployment. The fact that hybrid plants are both economical and have the ability to be considered dispatchable, they serve to accommodate renewable generation growth, such as the recent CPUC approval of 11.5 GW (https://www.utilitydive.com/news/california-approves-115-gw-of-new-clean-resources-in-largest-ever-single-p/602417/), without increasing curtailment potential.
Green H2 will likely have niche potential in decarbonization, but the burden of the massive build out of renewable generation required to decarbonize electricity would be lessened if higher round trip efficiency storage are used to provide the “on demand” service. As longer term storage mediums, such as flow or iron-air batteries, gain a commercial foothold, and enjoy the same cost reductions Li-Ion short term storage realized, the economics of utilizing them in favor of H2 will most likely be appealing.
For more details on the items discussed, please contact me: jake.sessions@tjfirma.com
