Four years ago this week, California’s power grid was so strained by a heat wave that rolling blackouts hit hundreds of thousands of residents over two days. It nearly happened again two years ago, when state officials issued 11 “flex alerts” asking businesses and homeowners to voluntarily reduce electricity use to avoid power disruptions.
But this year when a record heat wave scorched the state over three weeks from mid-June to July — sending temperatures across the Bay Area and the Central Valley soaring over 110 degrees — there was plenty of power. No warnings. No shortages. No flex alerts.
A big part of the reason, experts say, is a boom in the construction of giant battery projects.
California’s high-tech battery centers built with thousands of lithium-ion batteries similar to the batteries in cell phones and electric cars are solving the main shortcoming of the push for more renewable energy: the fact that the sun…
