# Re-imagining the energy grid ... through batteries (Two Indicators)  ## Episode metadata - Episode title: Re-imagining the energy grid ... through batteries (Two Indicators) - Show: Planet Money - Owner / Host: NPR - Episode publish date: 2025-01-29 - Episode AI description: Discover how advances in battery technology are transforming renewable energy. In California, large-scale batteries are now able to power millions of homes, thanks in part to supportive legislation. Meanwhile, Texas approaches the energy market more freely, facing challenges during peak demand periods. The contrasting strategies between these states reveal the complexities of energy management. Also, dive into the innovative processes behind lithium battery production, hinting at a future deep dive. - Duration: 17:49 - Episode URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/episode/912939e9-298c-4f24-8213-f74a68f037e0) - Show URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/show/0d664d9a-72ad-49c5-aa9e-9d20862717ae) - Export date: 2026-02-11T20:06:35 ## Snips ### [Battery Storage Mandate](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9925177e-7668-4fb1-b3b8-a2b371efbb4a) 🎧 00:22 - 01:33 (01:10) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/269d13e6-2962-4049-ad36-66f1c8ac8386" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - A bill requiring utilities to purchase battery storage was met with resistance. - Despite the initial pushback, the bill passed in 2010, setting the stage for future growth. #### 💬 Quote > That this was just pie in the sky, this is not real, like another California pipe dream. > — Nancy Skinner Nancy Skinner recalls the skepticism surrounding battery storage. #### 📚 Transcript **Cooper Katz McKim:** In 2008, Nancy Skinner was elected to the California state legislature. So technically, my term began in 2009. **Darian Woods:** Nancy has witnessed the state's vision for clean energy firsthand. Soon after she was elected, a bill was being considered to get more of their electricity than ever from renewables. **Cooper Katz McKim:** But there was a problem. When the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow, there's no power. Several people approached Nancy to raise this issue. We're going to have to figure out how **Darian Woods:** to store it. And one way to store energy? A battery. Extra solar and wind electrons that aren't needed on the grid could flow into a battery. The problem was, though, grid-scale storage wasn't really a thing. **Cooper Katz McKim:** Nonetheless, Nancy was optimistic that eventually it would happen if you created a market signal. So she introduced a bill requiring utilities to purchase a certain percentage of battery storage when they bought electricity. Nancy remembers pushback. That this was just pie in the **Cooper Katz McKim:** sky, this is not real, like another California pipe dream. Still, in 2010, the bill passed, although nothing really happened. Grid scale batteries remained a pie in the sky concept for years. --- ### [Grid-Scale Battery Revolution](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ecafb137-54d0-476f-aaf6-e03843f637c1) 🎧 01:39 - 02:14 (00:34) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/09f4003a-316d-4dd5-95cc-c06e13cc0b92" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Grid-scale batteries, similar to those in phones, now power millions of homes. - This episode explores the battery storage markets in California and Texas. #### 💬 Quote > Basically, the same tech that's in your phone is now helping power millions of homes across America. > — Darian Woods Darian Woods on the technology behind grid-scale batteries. #### 📚 Transcript Hello **Cooper Katz McKim:** and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Cooper Katzmacken. **Darian Woods:** And I'm Darian Woods. After years of nothing, grid-scale batteries are now widely used and growing fast. Basically, the same tech that's in your phone is now helping power millions of homes across America. How did that happen, and what does the newfound success mean for **Cooper Katz McKim:** the grid? Today on the show, we go on a kind of road trip for electric battery storage. Two stories from two states. We'll begin in California, where battery storage first took off in the U.S., to see how the state supported its wind and solar energy markets. --- ### [Visiting Cal Flats](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3d2e58b5-e7b0-41e4-ae66-0febe36dd2fb) 🎧 03:25 - 06:08 (02:42) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/c92c958e-7a50-4d10-8c83-e3cd82b37be8" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Cooper Katz McKim visited Cal Flats, a massive solar farm with battery storage, owned by Erivon. - The facility uses Tesla batteries similar to those in electric cars, storing excess solar energy for later use. #### 💬 Quote > It's the equivalent of more than 2,000 football fields. It really did feel huge. > — Cooper Katz McKim Cooper Katz McKim describes the scale of Cal Flats. #### 📚 Transcript **Darian Woods:** Cats for Kim, producer extraordinaire with The Indicator. You're back from **Cooper Katz McKim:** your travels west. We sent you on a journey to see these batteries firsthand. I am back indeed from the very sunny California where there are enough batteries to power 13 million homes. I wanted to go because I have no idea how batteries actually work. And I hope you learned this on the trip. I did. I connected with a battery storage facility that's connected to a solar farm, spread across 20%..com. acres. That **Darian Woods:** is huge. It's the equivalent of more than 2,000 football fields. It really did feel huge. It took a **Cooper Katz McKim:** long time to drive through. The whole operation is called Cal Flats. It's owned by an independent power producer called Erivon. Justin Johnson is the chief operating officer there. Will we my hard hat back there, Anand? Yeah. Justin **Cooper Katz McKim:** gave me a tour of the facility along with Anand Narayanan, Erivon's senior VP of asset management. I lost for a couple of hard hats. At **Cooper Katz McKim:** the battery storage facility itself, there are rows of white containers not much taller than a person. I learned this is where it all happens. It's like **Cooper Katz McKim:** a series of shelves. Imagine server racks, right? So it's a bunch of server racks. You have all your PCs and a bunch of PCs stacked together, which have the batteries in them, the inverter inside them. There's three per door. So they're stacked. If you open up one of these doors. Could we open one of **Cooper Katz McKim:** them up? No. Yeah, **Darian Woods:** we don't have the keys, unfortunately. That was **Cooper Katz McKim:** a pretty fast no-cooper. I just wanted to open the door. I don't see the problem here. The do not press button was so tempting. If I see a button, I want to press it. Either way, they told me that each one of these cabinets holds the batteries themselves. They're about the size of a large briefcase and are manufactured by Tesla. The batteries are similar to what would go in a Tesla car, which is also made up of lithium-ion. And the site is packed with energy, right? I heard that Cal **Darian Woods:** Flats has enough storage capacity to power 60,000 homes over an afternoon. I **Cooper Katz McKim:** know, yeah. It is wild. Justin told me how this all works. There's excess solar in the middle of the day, so the power price can be low. So we can take the extra solar that's produced in the day from the arrays and store it for use later in **Cooper Katz McKim:** the evening when it's needed most, when the sun is going down. That **Cooper Katz McKim:** hum you're hearing behind Justin is the HVAC system, keeping the batteries cool because they're charging from that solar energy, and probably also the heat just from how hot it is outside. The sun was very strong when I visited. Yeah, let's move to the shade. Yeah. That's like rule number one in solar is don't visit in the summer either. --- ### [Renewable Reliability and Value](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a36b00b3-2952-4eb1-ad1d-9c31920656be) 🎧 06:08 - 07:42 (01:34) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/d164ec7c-ec23-4aba-bea6-4f666a8443f2" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Erivon sells stored solar power to Apple and PG&E, increasing the reliability and value of renewables. - This reliability is attractive to tech companies with high energy demands. #### 💬 Quote > But that hurt us financially as well because we were paid less for our power because we were intermittent. > — Justin Johnson Justin Johnson on how batteries solved the financial challenges of intermittent renewable energy. #### 📚 Transcript **Darian Woods:** Sounds like you might have got a bit of a California tan, Cooper. Yeah, the sun is not my friend as a redheaded man. So it sounds like you'll be happier when the sun goes down, which is when Erivon sells the power when prices are high. Erivon then moves the renewable electrons onto underground cables to transmission lines to the grid. For this power specifically, Rivon has two customers that buy this power, Apple and PG&E, California's biggest electricity provider. It's such a big facility, there's so much power generated that it's hard to find one buyer to take it all, so we ended up splitting the output to two different buyers of electricity. That means that somebody's home, say in Fresno, they turn on their lights and we're literally anyone who takes PG&E. Exactly. Yeah, this power is kind of, I mean, an electron's an electron. It's hard to tell **Darian Woods:** where it actually came from once it hits a transmission line. All right. So how did we actually get here? Remember that utility providers were saying to Nancy Skinner that this was some kind of pie-in California-dreaming concept. Yeah, we put that question to Justin. Right. So, like, all the scale and advancements that went in the manufacturing to bring the scale up and then to drive the cost down just weren't there yet to do it economically. So, we're at that really nice intersection where the technology's improved enough, the cost has come down at that intersection where you're meeting the demand at the price they need to be successful, where it allows us to build these sorts of plants to serve that need. --- ### [Growing Demand Drives Battery Storage](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a6900f3c-c110-42ce-b0c5-25309990cff6) 🎧 07:42 - 10:08 (02:25) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/1d856c07-f1de-4a7f-a45e-e0f5a1854a49" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Increased electricity demand from data centers, electric cars, and other sources is driving battery storage growth. - California's battery storage capacity grew rapidly, powering millions more homes in just six months. #### 💬 Quote > Electricity demand is spiking worldwide due to data centers, but also electric cars, trains, cryptocurrency mining. > — Darian Woods Darian Woods on the factors driving increased electricity demand. #### 📚 Transcript And **Darian Woods:** so what we're left with is a totally new way for renewables to interact with the electricity grid. The power created by the sun or wind can go further now, tapped into whenever a customer like Apple or PG&E wants it. Yeah, **Darian Woods:** so that was one of the big knock on renewables, always has been, it's intermittent. But that hurt us financially as well because we were paid less for our power because we were intermittent. So when you pair storage with solar, now we can, the people we sell power to, it's more valuable to them because we can provide them power when they want it most. We can provide them a fixed shape, meaning tell us how much power you want in any given hour of the day and we'll design a plant to meet your needs exactly. This **Cooper Katz McKim:** new reliability in renewables is very attractive to tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon. They already use solar and wind power, but they have power-hungry data centers to feed things like artificial intelligence. So they're buying up battery storage too. Tech companies **Darian Woods:** aren't alone. Electricity demand is spiking worldwide due to data centers, but also electric cars, trains, cryptocurrency mining. Demand is also coming from grid services, like serving as a backup power if there's ever a blackout due to maybe an overworked grid. I think if you have a solar plant or a battery plant or a combination anywhere in the U.S. that's ready to be built these days, you can find an offtaker, you know, someone to sell the power. **Cooper Katz McKim:** There's just tremendous demand, tremendous demand for it. In 2019, California had limited battery storage capacity. In April of last year, batteries could power 10 million homes for a period of time. Just six months later, that number grew to 13 million homes. **Darian Woods:** California has a long history of expanding its alternative energy sources. Historically, the Golden State has been way ahead of the curve on renewables, going all the way back to the 1980s with support and subsidies from both Republican and Democratic governors. But when it comes to the ongoing battery expansion, Justin Johnson says things are just getting started. But this phenomenon you've seen in California, it's going to occur elsewhere in the U.S. It's just because California has the highest penetration level of renewables anywhere in the U.S. and it created the demand for storage. As penetration levels increase throughout the U.S. as they have in Texas and elsewhere, the storage market is going to follow in those areas too. --- ### [Future of Battery Storage](https://share.snipd.com/snip/99cb4d03-7584-4f5e-8a2d-e2654453112e) 🎧 10:08 - 10:47 (00:39) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/1ab8ac0e-2aa5-4fef-acf4-4325d82c9863" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Erivon has invested heavily in battery storage and sees potential for expansion beyond California. - The growth of renewables in other states is expected to create similar demand for storage. #### 💬 Quote > As penetration levels increase throughout the U.S. as they have in Texas and elsewhere, the storage market is going to follow in those areas too. > — Justin Johnson Justin Johnson on the future of battery storage in the U.S. #### 📚 Transcript And everyone's ready for that. Justin's **Cooper Katz McKim:** company, Erivon, believes in grid-scale battery storage so much, it's invested $2 billion in the space. They already have five facilities in California, including Cal Flats, and it's looking at six more. California **Darian Woods:** got where it was because of planning from politicians like Nancy Skinner. But in Texas, **Cooper Katz McKim:** they take a bit more of a hands-off, free-market rodeo-type way of doing things. So let's go to Texas. I'm going to hop out here and Darian, let you and Indicator co-host Waylon Wong pick it up after the break. --- ### [Texas' Free Market Approach](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0ca92691-6af2-4381-a890-f77f6d9dafd0) 🎧 12:02 - 13:42 (01:40) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/01a10991-3a94-48b0-b122-f639ecea66b1" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Texas, unlike California, takes a more hands-off, free-market approach to its power grid. - This approach can be riskier for battery developers but potentially offers greater rewards. #### 💬 Quote > Texas, on the other hand, is a more boisterous free market. > — Wailin Wong Wailin Wong contrasts Texas' approach with California's. #### 📚 Transcript a hot September day in 2023, the operators of Texas's power grid were getting nervous. The warmth from an unusually hot summer was pushing later into the year. That meant more air conditioners, more fans, and more staying inside. But **Darian Woods:** keeping up with that thirst for electricity was a scramble. The sun was setting earlier as the summer gave way to fall, and that meant less solar power in the evening. That day, the wind was forecast to be low, so not much wind power just when people got home and turned on their ACs and TVs and ovens. Also, a few power plants were out of commission. Watching all of this was Stephanie Smith. She's the chief operating officer of Eolian, which is a company that, among other things, builds battery plants in Texas. It was just one of those perfect storms of events where a few went offline at the same time in the DFW area. For Texans, the deadly winter blackouts from a couple years earlier were front of mind. And the question that evening in September was, could Texas's grid batteries save the day this time? Texas's **Darian Woods:** approach to the power grid is rather different than the one in California. California takes more of a longer-term planning approach. Project approval is finalized after more assessment of how generators might fit into these plans. And the state offers long-term contracts to give electricity generators certainty before they invest in, say, a new grid-scale battery project. Texas, on the other hand, is a more boisterous free market. It's not that Texas has no regulation or government intervention whatsoever. It's just comparatively hands-off. --- ### [Eolian's Battery Plants in Texas](https://share.snipd.com/snip/930e8348-fb61-4b79-bb02-4f53ba61d8b6) 🎧 13:42 - 17:14 (03:32) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/dd53f4e7-fde9-42f4-bfd9-19b293259021" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Eolian builds battery plants in Texas, capitalizing on the free-market system. - They provide ancillary services, stabilizing the grid by managing electricity flow. #### 💬 Quote > Picture a football field full of shipping containers, and you kind of know what a battery project looks like at the scale that we're building. > — Stephanie Smith Stephanie Smith describes the size of Eolian's battery projects. #### 📚 Transcript And that can put companies wanting to install batteries at the whim of the invisible hand. **Darian Woods:** But to Stephanie Smith, the chief operating officer for Eolian, that's the way her battery building company likes it. We'll have more risk in some cases, but yeah, that's the idea. More risk, more reward. **Darian Woods:** In Texas, if the price goes very low, well, then maybe some operators need to stop producing power. If there's a spike in the price of electricity, great. That gives operators like Eolian the incentive to put more electricity onto the grid. And one opportunity for reward that Stephanie's company saw was in helping top up the grid for short periods of time when a lot of people wanted electricity, but there wasn't enough being generated. And the company seized that opportunity by building giant battery plants. Picture a football field full of shipping containers, and you kind of know what a battery project looks like at the scale that we're building. Imagine **Darian Woods:** rows and rows of those shipping containers filled with like hundreds of electric car batteries. The easiest use case to imagine is overnight when the sun's not shining on solar panels. You know, the price of electricity could be high and Eolian then releases some of its batteries. And then when the sun is shining the next day and electricity is cheap, it tops back up those batteries. But actually, a big part of what Eolian does is what's called ancillary services. This is kind of like top up and maintenance to ensure a steady stream of electricity through the wires, regardless of whether it was originally generated by renewable or fossil fuel sources. By putting a little juice into the wires when it's running low and taking it out when it could get overloaded, the overall grid becomes more stable. You don't want excitement on a grid. You don't want surprises. And batteries are amazing at doing all of those things and reacting within microseconds of whenever their need is. **Darian Woods:** And that day in September 2023 was the ultimate test of whether Texas's free market batteries, like the ones that Stephanie's company owns, could stabilize the grid and avoid blackouts. And you remember these moments because for anyone in the company working on this stuff, it gives you a heart attack every time it happens. Demand was high, generation was low, at least in the places that needed it. The power grid operators pleaded with Texans to limit their power use. They just issued another notice to conserve energy. Yeah, it's a step up from the weather watch. **Darian Woods:** As evening came, Texas's power reserves dwindled. bunch of wind electricity was being produced in the south, but was overloading the wires, taking them to the north, where a lot of the demand was. This was a dangerous situation of congestion. At one point, people in Stephanie's company noticed the signs of a huge gap in electricity needs. The grid operator sounded an elevated emergency alert, the alert just below the level of potential rolling blackouts. And beyond just alerts, the electricity market was going ballistic. A megawatt hour of electricity usually goes for a little over $100. It was now hitting $5,000. If there was ever an incentive for companies to discharge their batteries, it was now. It was unexpected and went really fast. And because batteries can react within microseconds, a bunch of batteries jumped in, including ours, and stopped that frequency fall and brought the grid back into balance and kept the lights on. So that was a fun experience. Very stressful. Stephanie's --- ### [Texas Grid Stress Test](https://share.snipd.com/snip/709f0aab-27d4-4632-8b00-b2eeea4f5a81) 🎧 17:14 - 18:39 (01:24) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/9cde50f5-88c5-42e8-a5a0-36c6d1283955" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - In September 2023, high demand and low generation put Texas's grid under stress, pushing electricity prices to $5,000 per megawatt-hour. - Eolian's batteries helped stabilize the grid and prevent blackouts, highlighting the role of batteries in a free market. #### 💬 Quote > And because batteries can react within microseconds, a bunch of batteries jumped in, including ours, and stopped that frequency fall and brought the grid back into balance and kept the lights on. > — Stephanie Smith Stephanie Smith describes how batteries prevented blackouts in Texas. #### 📚 Transcript got some threshold for fun. Yeah, **Darian Woods:** living on the edge of the grid. That should be their new company tagline. Eolian's batteries drew down their electricity. Given that high electricity price of $5,000, they were presumably rewarded handsomely for doing so. As the night progressed, Texans turned off their washing machines and microwaves and went to bed. Partly thanks to batteries, there had been no blackouts in Texas. **Darian Woods:** It's like the duck paddling. You are the feet paddling very fast and the duck just cruises along the pond. And that's exactly right. If we're doing our jobs, nobody knows. I nearly had a heart attack, but you kept your AC on. So **Darian Woods:** is this a story about the beauty of prices and visibly guiding company behavior all around Texas? Is this a free market fable? Starring a duck and a battery? Maybe **Darian Woods:** called Friedrich Highquack? Ugh, Darian, someone get you a book deal? Well, the debate isn't settled. Critics argue that Texas shouldn't have been that close to a blackout in the first place, that a little more central planning like in California might have been helpful. What's more, batteries in Texas are agnostic about whether they're helping smooth out renewable or fossil fuel generators. More planning could ensure the batteries are specifically focused on helping wind and solar generators, speeding up the energy transition to a low-carbon grid. --- ### [Texas vs. California: The Battery Race](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b80b7dee-296a-4674-8d75-c828232c3c6e) 🎧 18:39 - 19:11 (00:31) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/4d30c578-83a4-4d70-9692-c1185095b29e" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Texas's battery capacity has grown significantly, making it the second-largest market after California. - The free-market approach incentivizes battery development, but its long-term effectiveness compared to planned approaches remains to be seen. #### 💬 Quote > In the battery race of California, Texas is coming second, but it is catching up fast. > — Darian Woods Darian Woods on the competition between Texas and California in battery storage. #### 📚 Transcript **Darian Woods:** Whatever the case, the Texas system is encouraging companies to build a lot of grid-scale batteries. From basically nothing in 2020, by 2024, the state had enough batteries to power an entire small city for a day. In the battery race of California, Texas is coming second, but it is catching up fast. Sounds like the tortoise and the hare. **Darian Woods:** Yeah, which one's the tortoise and which one's the hare? Ooh, stay tuned. --- Created with [Snipd](https://www.snipd.com) | Highlight & Take Notes from Podcasts