I’ll just leave this here, in case there are some other electric grid nerds out there: https://www.gridstatus.io/trends?period=year&metric=battery-discharge
Really neat site with nearly real time data.
It’s a great resource. I use it when seasons change to get a sense of when is the best time to charge my car, with whatever time of day and weather conditions that have high renewable generation and/or low demand so that I don’t feed into fossil fuel demand if I can avoid it.
So what’s the yellow?
Solar - here’s those same two charts(albeit later in the day) with the full keys.
Solar. The labels are not super helpful on that screenshot, but you can go to the website and see the graphs in greater detail. Plus at this moment, you’ll be able to see the battery discharge stats.
Seems a little weird to me the northeast is so far behind. I mean yes they have less solar potential but not that much less.
I mean yes they have less solar potential but not that much less.
I wonder if population density plays into it. With a lot more people demanding a lot more electricity, is there enough physical space for wind and solar on a per capita basis?
I’ve seen a dozen or so grid scale battery projects local to me in the NE. The majority are hung up in litigation with local NIMBY opposition. The scale of the opposition always surprises me, I can’t help but wonder how much is grassroots vs anti-renewable lobby.
Wow interesting. Maybe in more arid climates there is less opposition because there’s fewer trees to preserve? Otherwise I can’t imagine why it would be different.
I haven’t heard any backlash against batteries here although there has been some against large solar projects.
I usually see people saying the batteries will catch fire and the toxic gasses will kill everyone within 3 miles. Like many NIMBY complaints, they are barely based in reality and blown away out of proportion.
I suspect it’s because most of the solar is behind the meter like residential/commercial rooftop installations. It’s harder to divert that production into grid scale batteries.
This is the new England grid North of New York today:
Light yellow is behind the meter, dark yellow is grid scale
Ah that is a good point! So then why so little utility solar? Maybe less open land to build it on?
Significantly less cooling demands and homes that heat with oil / gas.
I’m in the Northeast and my house is on Nuclear power.
I was on Nuclear in all three north east states I’ve lived in too.
Lots of wind turbines up in the mountains though.
I don’t think that’s it. I’ll speak to California since that’s where I live. Most people live on the coast where AC usage is not high and most furnaces run on gas, not electricity. So I don’t think this explains a lack of battery uptake in the Northeast. There is still a lot of demand for electricity, it’s just being met by other sources.
Edit: I looked it up an CA has one of the lowest per capita electricity rates in the country: https://greeninnovationindex.org/2025-edition/energy-efficiency/figure-52/
