💯 Pop Quiz! Define the following: EPCs, SCADA systems, upregulation, downregulation, frequency regulation, spinning reserves, timeshifting, and dispatchable assets. Didn't get them all right? That's okay! We've brought in Mahesh Morjaria of Terabase Energy to get you up to speed in conversation with BioZen's CEO Nate Kirchhofer. We're going to dive into just what an engineering marvel the grid is, and what it means to install something "on the grid." Over the last 25 years, 1.1 Terawatts of solar photovoltaic power generation has been grid integrated, and society needs to 10X that (at least!) over the next 25. You'll notice that a baseload of Terawatts combines to Terabase—the company name—and they have two major initiatives to make this happen: (1) Modern digitalization tools, and (2) construction automation, because while solar panels are constructed with 21st century tech, they're still installed with 19th century techniques. Stick around to learn about how new solid-state power electronics interconvert DC and AC signals, and how those same electronics enable photovoltaics to talk to batteries in solar + storage plants so that they actually provide grid services more effectively than conventional generators. In the end, Terabase and solar + battery system developers are agnostic to battery systems as long as they can be controlled to deliver the appropriate output to the grid.
Recorded 4 April 2023.
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