Bloomberg published a post on June 29, 2018 that struck us as significant. In the first instance, the category is Climate Changed. Notice the subtle addition of the ‘D’ as in it has happened. The second is the California PG&E announcement Silicon Valley is going to become a little greener in the energy sense.
Silicon Valley in Halcyon Times before Climate Changed
‘Halcyon’ – pronounced /ˈhalsɪən/ is a Greek word referring to a period in the past, that was idyllically happy and peaceful. Legends tell of Halcyon birds breeding on nests floating at sea at the winter solstice, charming the wind and waves into calm.
The early days of Silicon Valley in the southern San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California were certainly magical. However, much of the new telegraph and radio technology was for the military, until the silicon transistor gave birth to personal computers and digital technology. Unfortunately, this knowledge contributed to the way our climate changed since the 1950’s, albeit unintentionally.
The Wheel Turns Again in Silicon Valley, California
Since those early halcyon days, Silicon Valley became an energy guzzler. Until quite recently, all this energy came from coal burning power stations, and questionably ‘safe’ nuclear reactors costing vast sums.
We are delighted to hear California PG&E is replacing gas peaking stations with battery storage in Silicon Valley. The utility has applied for 567 megawatts of energy storage. We understand Tesla will be contributing 182.5 megawatts of lithium batteries.
To set this in context, one megawatt can power 750 homes. The balance of power will mostly come from a 300-megawatt Flex-Gen system owned by Vistra Energy Corp. according to Bloomberg.
A 75-megawatt system owned by Hummingbird Energy Storage LLC will top up the balance, together with 10 megawatts from behind-the-meter battery customer sites. Silicon Valley can now go forward with halcyon green technologies, despite the fact that the climate changed.
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