Readers React: The DWP’s fossil-fuel fallback plan ignores rapid advances in battery technology
To the editor: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power representatives have stated that gas-fired power plants are needed to provide electricity when solar and wind energy are not available.
The basis for this is the view that electrical energy storage technology is not currently developed sufficiently to provide economically viable grid-scale storage. However, recent advances in grid-scale energy storage technology provide encouraging evidence that in the near future we will be able to store power for widespread use economically.
The article “Advances in flow batteries promise cheap backup power,” published in the Nov. 2 issue of the journal Science, describes research being conducted in the United States, Great Britain and Singapore to determine the combination of materials to be used in flow batteries to provide the most economical grid-scale energy storage capability.
Al Barrett, Santa Monica
Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
A cure for the common opinion
Get thought-provoking perspectives with our weekly newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
