The New York Times has published an article on how Giant Batteries Are Transforming the Way the U.S. Uses Electricity. “Over the past three years, battery storage capacity on the nation’s grids has grown tenfold, to 16,000 megawatts. This year, it is expected to nearly double again, with the biggest growth in Texas, California and Arizona.”

The article is well researched and contains much information, except it only explains the benefits of batteries for grid operators to store renewable energy. The Times has been co-opted as a marketing arm of utilities by not including a discussion of independent power systems, like the PowerBloc®.

Batteries on the grid are needed. The grid is and will continue to be an indispensable part of our power supply system. Still, high-power solar battery systems located at homes and businesses have even higher value – for the customer.

Far from your home and solar array and owned your utility. A battery storage facility under construction in Menifee, Calif., in March. The site, at 43 acres, is expected to be the largest in the state when completed. Source: New York Times

The value is real; otherwise, our customers would not spend tens of thousands of dollars on a PowerBloc. High-power systems like the PowerBloc also help everyone on the grid.

1. Stored energy is consumed where it is produced. In Northern California, about 40% of solar energy coincides with demand. This means that with a battery on-site, 60% of energy does not need to be sent to utility batteries over the grid. There are efficiency advantages, but a commensurate transmission and distribution infrastructure is not needed. Billions of dollars can be saved.
2. Avoid transmission and distribution (“T&D”) upgrades. Electrification of the home will double energy consumption and, proportionally, peak demand. It is a critical step towards carbon neutrality but will require massive upgrades of the T&D system. High-power, deep storage systems like the PowerBloc avoid our customers’ utility service upgrades in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Billions of dollars can be saved.
3. Provide outage protection. The central grid cannot handle the severe weather conditions supercharged by global heating. The central grid can no longer deliver reliable power unless transmission and distribution are reinforced, including going underground.
4. Turn Ratepayers into Asset Owners. Utilities are eager to deploy billions of dollars in batteries and T&D upgrades for which they earn a guaranteed rate of return. For utilities, customers are “ratepayers.” With a PowerBloc, our customers become asset owners and reap the financial benefits that would otherwise go to utilities.

Utility batteries have one advantage over today’s distributed battery systems: lower cost through scale. But we at YouSolar address the cost issue by relentlessly focusing on a modular, standardized, and plug-and-play architecture.

YouSolar does not plan to replace utilities and central power. But finally, there is an alternative. In many situations, we give customers more reliable, cleaner, and more cost-effective power. We make the market more efficient. Competition is good.