As we entered the twenty-first century, electricity was still a relatively hit-or-miss affair. Either you had it, or you did not. If demand exceeded supply, then the utility might shed some customers. If the grid went down completely, then you scrambled for the candles. But now we have huge solar battery farms that help prevent this happening, by storing electricity for those lean times.
Huge Solar Battery Farms Reshape North American Landscapes
Communities in Texas and California are already seeing the benefits, as noisy polluting gas peaking stations fall silent. Clean huge solar battery farms have taken their place, and can cut in and out of the grid much faster.
Those battery farms harvesting electricity from the Sun’s energy, may look like rows of dumb containers beside a field of mirrors. But there are more and more of them every year, as the quantity doubles and redoubles.
The Cool Down explains how the solar panels, increasingly teamed with wind turbines, soak up the energy in the sun and the breezes. And then deliver energy to giant batteries, that convert it to electricity.
Then those giant batteries bide their time, and wait until the grid calls on them. This is most likely to be during the evening peak when demand increases, while the sun sets and the wind drops away.
Saving Carbon While We Begin to Save Money Too
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, those huge solar battery farms were an expensive necessity we begrudgingly accepted. That’s because our scientists had finally drummed it into our heads that we had to have them.
You see, for the first time we finally understood what they had been telling us for decades. Fossil fuels – that’s coal, gas and gasoline – were clogging our atmosphere, and that was causing storms and heatwaves.
But now the wheels of finance are turning our way finally. Solar power now competes with fossil fuel dollar-for-dollar, and is becoming even cheaper thanks to economies of scale, with smarter battery design evolving.
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Solar Power and Wind and Global Warming
