Supply Chain Issues Delaying US Grid Batteries' Installation (latimes.com)
- Reference: 0185108768
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/08/23/0333203/supply-chain-issues-delaying-us-grid-batteries-installation
- Source link: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-08-17/big-batteries-meant-to-stabilize-grid-are-stuck-in-limbo
> Demand for batteries has skyrocketed as electricity use across the U.S. swells, driven by data centers' booming energy needs and increasing electrification. It's also getting harder to get them connected to power grids... As those upgrades get delayed, storage projects are piling up in interconnection queues from coast to coast. For example, Consolidated Edison Inc., a major utility in New York state, says over the last two years the volume of battery storage projects waiting to be connected has grown by 300%... "The whole process of interconnecting these new power plants got really log-jammed and bottlenecked," said Joseph Rand, an energy policy researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory...
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> Nationwide, some 750 gigawatts of energy storage projects — roughly equivalent to the generating capacity of more than 700 nuclear reactors — are in line to get grid connections, according to the lab's research. Not all of these projects will get built. Many developers already abandoned the queue because of delays. Still, the waiting time is increasing; the median was five years in 2025, up from a year and a half in 2015. The flood of battery projects is expected to continue. Wood Mackenzie, an energy consultancy, projects the U.S. energy storage market will quadruple in the next six years...
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> [Shortages in key equipment] have driven up construction costs and time lines for grid upgrades, leaving utilities struggling to build fast enough. A drought of skilled workers is further slowing them down... In California, PG&E Corp., the state's largest utility, told regulators in January that a key driver of delays was long lead times for specialized equipment. Procuring certain breakers could take nearly four years, according to the utility, which reported a 300% increase in its interconnection workload compared to prior years. In Northern California, for example, holdups to circuit breaker upgrades to a substation in Solano County led to projected delays for two battery projects worth a combined 450 megawatts. Transmission line work in the Bay Area has put another 800 megawatts of energy storage at risk of delay, according to PG&E.
Last year New York's Con Ed started requiring developers to help pay for upgrades if their projects will push power demand and strain infrastructure. But that also drew criticism:
> According to a survey conducted by the trade group New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium (NY-BEST), the new methodology raised costs by an average of $21 million per project, a 14-fold increase. At least 25 projects have been canceled as a result, according to the group. Battery advocates have appealed to state regulators to get Con Ed to abandon the new policy.
Thanks to Slashdot reader [2]Bruce66423 for sharing the news.
[1] https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-08-17/big-batteries-meant-to-stabilize-grid-are-stuck-in-limbo
[2] https://www.slashdot.org/~Bruce66423
Wrong conclusion. (Score:3)
> A drought of skilled workers is further slowing them down...
Given that we live in a "market-driven" society, the correct conclusion is that companies are refusing to properly compensate skilled workers. As for the cause, the only rational conclusion is that there is insufficient competition in the energy distribution market. To encourage competition, the correct move would be to start breaking up large energy distribution companies like PG&E.
Re: (Score:2)
> Given that we live in a "market-driven" society, the correct conclusion is that companies are refusing to properly compensate skilled workers.
With executive pay at all time highs and the gap between executive and workers larger than ever, I would agree. This is a failure in the system where boards of directors are not holding executives accountable. The system can't hold for long.
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There doesn't seem to be as much money in green energy than there is in, lets say, oil. The problem with a free market is that people are allowed to go where the money is.
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In a free market, business owners would be free to decide how much land to set aside for parking for their customers, just as restaurant owners decide how many tables and chairs to set out. Right now, parking requirements are set by cities and are [1]"closer to sorcery than to science." [dallascityhall.com]
Let's do it. Because we all value freedom here, right?
The external costs of oil also need to be priced in if the market is going to make decisions. One example of these costs are the [2]damage to our lungs caused by emissions. [slashdot.org] We
[1] https://dallascityhall.com/departments/sustainabledevelopment/planning/DCH%20Documents/code%20amendments/parking%20code/APA_%20Practice_Parking_Reform_February%202020.pdf
[2] https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/08/22/0537243/low-emission-zone-led-to-better-lung-size-function-among-london-children
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It's not just the companies, the whole educational system including parental brainwashing from the media has been harping on "you have to go to college" for years.
Way back in the '70s my high school had a wood shop, gas and arc welding, machine shop and an auto shop. The girls admittedly got a much smaller variety of hands on things to choose from.
Do modern high schools offer similar options?
By the way, I did take arc welding and two semesters of machine shop but then I wasn't planning to go to college, tha
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Yes. Every single one of them has this. Also they are all encouraging people to not go to college and to become a trades person. Literally on opening day of every freshman orientation the local principal tells every student that they are unlikely to go to college. It is honestly a shame.
But yes every school has these things, and they all want to act like it is some new achievement, when they renovate them, but they have all had them always.
There is no shortage of people that can take these jobs, there is
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My electric company is owned by a few international conglomerates.
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More important than breaking up PGE, we should nationalize the distribution infrastructure. PGE has demonstrated time and again that they lack the necessary responsibility. I refer again to burning down much of Paradise, CA by skipping maintenance, as the fire was caused by a line falling because a hook wore through due to being in service for 99 years. Surely they could have caught that with an inspection any time over several decades as the wear would have been easily visible long before failure, if only
Non sequitur (Score:2)
Why should the fact that batteries have gotten more expensive mean data centres should be able to foist their costs of unprecedented expansion speed on existing grid users? Likely the batteries are still cheaper than solving it with interconnect and generation, so pay up or fuck off.
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Exactly, that's $21 million per project they were going to foist on the existing rate payers.
Is an extra $21 million turns you AI project from profit to loss then it wasn't going to ever make money anyway. AI is either going to go bust or become a commodity. Either way the highest cost data centers will go broke and be abandoned in place. The county should be charging reclamation fees as well. Get the cash for clean up up front because you won't be getting after the bankruptcy filing.
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> Why should the fact that batteries have gotten more expensive
The first line of the summary:
> Falling prices have made grid-scale storage batteries more attractive...
It's not the batteries that are the bottleneck. It is the equipment to connect them into the net, and the skilled labor to do so.
> ... mean data centres should be able to foist their costs of unprecedented expansion speed on existing grid users?
"Should" is not really a useful word in economic analysis. The cost of expanding capacity is a cost that has to be paid now, while the income from selling electricity is an income that occurs in the future. If this were an unregulated free market, if the data centers are offeri
Interesting (Score:2)
This means despite all the assholes and all the idiots there, even the US is slowly going to green energy, fore purely economic reasons.
Empty slogans. (Score:2)
Just think how much of this alleviated by Made in America being more than a slogan?
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Probably very little. When demand outstrips supply, where the supply is sourced is the limiting factor. If all the parts were made in the US, there would still be supply constraints.