Mass blackouts and power outages have been plaguing hundreds of thousands of Californians in the past week. The outages are a result of one of the state’s largest utility companies–Pacific Gas & Electric–shutting off power to avoid potential wildfires.
This has sparked quite a debate among the public and media . PG&E has received criticism from officials that they are putting corporate profits over public good and safety.
“Californians should not pay the price for decades of PG&E’s greed and neglect,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Twitter. “PG&E must be held to account.”
PG&E provides power to almost 16 million people in California. The San Francisco-based company reported 738,000 customers were without power, which translated to 2.1 million people.
PG&E has been in hot water the last several years as the company was found responsible for a dozen fires in 2017 and is now being held accountable for the severe fire that destroyed nearly the entire town of Paradise and killed 85 people in 2018.
As the political debate rages, it’s important to note that there is a solution which could greatly help avoid these outages. That solution is energy storage.
It’s no question that the electric grid needs to be modernized. It needs to be made more resilient. And energy storage fits that bill. It is cost-effective, safe, reliable and creates options and avenues for overcoming grid disruptions.
Energy storage also provides a solution to our dependency on fossil fuels by supporting the deployment of renewables like wind and solar. This explosive market is predicted to be a powerful source of job creation, as well.
In fact, thanks to the investment tax credit for solar, California has created a team of solar employees that make up a stunning 42% of all electric generation jobs in the state.
If the proposed Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act–which would extend the above tax credits to all forms of energy storage installations–were adopted, the nation could see a solution that saves money and creates a resilient and modernized grid that could prevent outages like those seen in California from ever happening.
At Dynapower, we are huge supporters of using our proven energy storage products to modernize the grid while supporting the environment and saving money. We are proud to be on the forefront of delivering fully integrated energy storage systems that are safe, reliable and effective.
In fact, our proprietary Dynamic Transfer technology is perfectly suited for helping to resolve the growing issues with blackouts and outages. Our Dynamic Transfer technology enables Dynapower Energy Storage Inverters to transition from Grid Tied (current source) mode of operation to Microgrid (voltage source) and back to Grid Tied (current source) mode of operation seamlessly.
For instance, our MPS®-i125 EHV Behind-the-Meter Energy Storage System has the ability to–in the event of a grid disturbance–seamlessly switch a facility from grid-tied to battery backup power.
