September 01, 2022 News » Strokes & Plugs

Electrification is the new mantra for California, as everything from cars, kitchen stoves, hot water heaters, and leaf blowers plug into the grid for their juice.

Proponents say that electrifying our lives will help us reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change. But critical to achieving that is first securing a reliable power supply—something the state continues to struggle with.

"The grid is in a pretty challenging spot right now," said Annie Secrest, water and energy coordinator for the San Luis Obispo County Department of Public Works. "Rolling brownouts are a thing they're scheduling every summer now because there's just too much demand."

As stress on the grid grows, so do the risks associated with more frequent and prolonged power outages. SLO County is turning to battery technology to try to solve one of those vulnerabilities—disruptions of critical public infrastructure.

On Sept. 6, SLO County is holding a ribbon-cutting ceremony to unveil two new battery energy storage units recently installed at the county's Health Agency and Public Health buildings on Johnson Avenue. The Tesla-made batteries can bank and store up to 31 hours of electricity as a backup power source.

"It reacts really fast to a grid outage signal," Secrest said, "and will provide energy to that particular facility. Now, let's say the grid outage is a PSPS [public safety power shutoff] event and it's like six days long. Well, once the battery's exhausted then a [diesel] generator will kick on. That's a really cool, and very unique, feature."

The two Tesla batteries are among five that the county received as part of a California Public Utilities Commission Self-Generation Incentive Program, which subsidizes resiliency batteries at critical public infrastructure located in high-risk wildfire areas across the state. The two health facilities on Johnson Avenue were among the small group that qualified.

"One of the sites is our Public Health lab and building," Secrest said. "That site has our deep-freeze freezers that contain our vaccinations and infectious disease [medicine], so it's really important from a public health medical standpoint for these sites to be operating even if there is a power outage."

The three other county facilities that qualified were the water treatment plant for Lopez Lake and two pump stations serving the Lake Nacimiento pipeline. Those water systems consume tons of electricity, Secrest said, and their new batteries, which are currently being installed and tested, will be much more powerful than those at the health buildings.

Ranging in cost from about $500,000 to more than $1 million each, all five Tesla batteries will be fully paid for by the state as part of the self-generation incentive program.

"From my perspective, I feel really grateful we were able to leverage this program because not just anyone can qualify for it—you have to meet some really specific criteria," Secrest said. "I'd gotten battery storage proposals in the past from previous iterations [of the state program], but the county always had to pay."

Secrest added that the batteries will provide more public benefit than just providing clean and reliable backup energy. They'll also reduce county electric bills—by as much as $800,000 over a 20-year lifespan—by strategically deploying their power throughout the day.

"What they do is they'll take energy from the grid when it's the cheapest time to get it, and then they'll store that energy," she said. "Then they'll deploy that cheap energy during times when energy is really expensive to buy from the grid. The batteries nowadays are so intelligent that all of this is hands-off and based on computers."

In the big picture, local battery resiliency projects like these will help reduce the statewide demand for electricity, when that demand is typically at its peak. Simultaneously, they'll make critical infrastructure less vulnerable to outages.

"Both on a residential level and a commercial level, this is definitely where the state wants to go," Secrest said. "They've been dumping a lot of money into these programs to figure out how basically to shed a load from the grid."

• The Grover Beach Community Library is holding a book sale on Sept. 10 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. "Books are sold by the inch, which means you can load up on any genre, hardback or paperback, and pay the same price," according to the library. Starting at 1:30 p.m., shoppers can buy a paper grocery bag for $2 and fill it with books. Visit groverbeachlibrary.org for more information. Δ

Assistant Editor Peter Johnson wrote this week's Strokes and Plugs. Send tidbits to strokes@newtimesslo.com.

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