Replacing NatGas With Solar – The Math

How Many L.A. Rooftop Solar Panels to Replace a Natural Gas Power Plant?

Andrew Burger, May 27, 2019 (Solar Magazine)

“…[Market-leading residential solar energy systems installer Sunrun proposes replacing] a Los Angeles natural gas power plant scheduled for retirement by aggregating the power generated by solar-plus-storage systems installed in city homes…[The ‘virtual power plant’ (VPP) could replace peak capacity and] save nearly $60 million…[The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the] largest municipal utility in the U.S….[could deploy battery storage and solar on] roughly 150,000 homes and 5,000 apartment buildings…The ability to generate and manage emissions-free electricity at gigawatt-scale with the reliability, and at a cost that matches, or beats, grid-connected, natural-gas power generation could be a genuine game-changer when it comes to advancing the renewable, zero-carbon energy transition…

[Power utilities could leapfrog and avoid investing in a new generation of natural-gas power plants, thereby avoiding all the carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gas emissions, other types of environmental pollution and water resources use that comes with them…Installed in homes, businesses and government facilities and then networked to create a virtual power plant (VPP), solar-plus-storage systems have the advantage of being modular and quick to deploy with small physical footprints…They offer an unprecedented amount of flexibility when it comes to the range of grid services they can provide, from ancillary grid services, such as frequency or voltage regulation, to primary, spinning and reserve grid generation capacity… Sunrun recently won a bid to provide regional transmission organization (RTO) ISO New England (ISO-NE) with energy capacity at wholesale rates by aggregating electrical power produced by home solar-plus-storage systems distributed across the region…” click here for more

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