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Re:California breaks 1 GW energy storage milestone by samatman on Thursday July 15, 2021 @04:33PM (#27849776)
It is a bit confusing, but it isn't wrong, there are just two capacities in question.

We could call them power capacity and energy capacity. This system can deliver 2000MW for four hours, or 1000MW for eight hours, but can't deliver 4000MW for two hours, because that exceeds the power capacity.

Re:California breaks 1 GW energy storage milestone by sib on Thursday July 15, 2021 @04:48PM (#27849946)
But then it seems that they should say "2000MW of delivery capacity" rather than "storage capacity"
Re:California breaks 1 GW energy storage milestone by renewiltord on Thursday July 15, 2021 @04:55PM (#27850020)
It’s not “storage capacity”, it’s “energy storage capacity”. Think of it like “sources of power”. Source 1 is nuclear, Source 2 is Hydro, Source 3 is Energy Storage.

What are our power sources available to the grid today? Nuclear, Hydro, Energy Storage.

What are the capacities?

Nuclear capacity is 1 GW

Hydro capacity is 1 GW

Energy storage capacity is 2 GW

Re:California breaks 1 GW energy storage milestone by s1artibartfast on Thursday July 15, 2021 @05:44PM (#27850497)
How is it not wrong?

The battery energy storage is 8GWh with a power capacity of 2GW. There is no such thing as a power storage capacity, because power is a rate. However, the storage may have a power capacity. pedantic, I know.

Re:California breaks 1 GW energy storage milestone by samatman on Thursday July 15, 2021 @07:35PM (#27851352)
Well, no this is incorrect.

Watts are joules / second, so watt * hours cancels time on both sides, it's just energy. Watt-hours are more convenient than "raw" joules only because we tend to be more interested in how many hours a battery will last at a given wattage, not how many seconds it will last.

So energy capacity is correct, it's the amount of energy (not power) one can store in the battery.

Edit: I read this as though you were replying to me, not the comment I was replying to. Swimming upstream, I see that, yes, "energy storage capacity" isn't in watts, but rather watt * hours, but I agree with @renewiltord that it's easy to understand once you factor in that journalists, for the most part, never took physics.

The numbers have the units next to them, after all.

Re:California breaks 1 GW energy storage milestone by cptskippy on Thursday July 15, 2021 @04:45PM (#27849917)
Why not call it the rate or throughput?

We don't state that a car with a 100mph top speed has a 100mph capacity.