Switching From Coal To Batteries At Power Plant In Maryland

[Cujet]

What I want to know is where are they going to get the electricity to charge the batteries until the solar farms are built? Also, what are they going to do on rainy days, cloudy days, etc.? Sounds almost too good to be true.

1) batteries make plenty of power, they come pre-charged
2) 20 megawatts is enough to power a small town of 400+ homes and a few businesses, for at least 60 seconds or so
3) I get the fact that all this stuff is trendy, but it's nowhere near enough, and the downsides are spectacular.

 

[OVERKILL]

Clearly they are going to use this as a load leveler. I.E.- Charge the batteries at night and discharge during the day.

Not with that installed capacity they aren't. It'll be FCAS and perhaps arbitrage (which is essentially the same philosophy as what you noted except that it's just a money maker for the owner of the unit, as it is far too small to provide any grid-level value).

We've witnessed these marketing exercises before with Australia's "big battery" (which is much larger than this one, but still tiny), pay close attention to the two Y-axises, here's what people are being sold by the faux green cult:

Here's how that actually looks when you present the data at scale:

 

[Cujet]

Batteries have limited lifespans, limited cycle life and high costs. The lifetime cost per KWH pulled from the batteries, once you include all the costs of the batteries, inverters and associated equipment, typically runs in the 30 cents per KWH range.

I'm sorry, but I just can't see any logic in converting powerplants to battery banks.

Battery reality, 4 foot piece of wood, 4 to 5.5 circular saw cuts till dead:
(let's call it what it is, 20 to 25 feet of cut per battery)