Posted on 1/26/2016
California’s goal is to produce at least 33% of its electricity from renewable sources, and while there’s plenty of sunshine and wind, their production fluctuates throughout the day, sometimes producing more than needed and other times falling short.
Regardless of what’s creating the baseload electricity, peaker plants are needed to provide quick demand response. When Southern California Edison (SCE) sent out a request for bids on a 100 megawatt peaker plant, they received over 1800 responses. The winner turned out to be AES, an energy company that builds power plants of nearly every flavor: coal, diesel, gas, oil, w...