> For the first time, California discharged just over 12,000 megawatts, equivalent to 12 large nuclear plants, of energy from its battery arrays. That’s enough to meet over 40 percent of the state’s energy demand. 

Here's California: https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso?date=2026-05-15

Here's Texas: https://www.gridstatus.io/live/ercot?date=2026-05-15

From this graph we see that in the evening when solar power goes out, for next 3 hours (7 pm to 10 pm) California's battery array is as powerful as 12 nuclear reactors. Then the batteries are drained empty, and the rest of the night California survives by importing electricity from other states. And partially by running hydro power only during the nights, keeping it at zero during the day.

https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso?date=2026-05-15

Most nuclear reactors are about a gigawatt, but most nuclear power plants have multiple reactors. 3-6 GW per plant is perhaps a more likely measure.

Batteries are normally talked about in terms of energy storage, not power.

IE: Batteries overall have 0 power. Everything they make had to come from somewhere else. Actually, because of losses in the 20%ish range, it's probably more accurate to say that California's Battery Array is __COSTING__ 2 nuclear power plants worth of power in electrical waste.

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Talk about GW-hrs of storage. You know, the value people actually cares about?

Managing the california grid is now completly different than any traditional grid in that peak power is managed seamlessly from solar/wind/battery power, not counting providing a significant, most?, of the daytime power, leaving just the nightime load running street lights and background loads. The stabilisation of costs, especialy durring a fuel crisis, is an invisible benifit that poorer countrys will be looking at as they plan there future grid updates, while struggling to keep the lights on right now.

So why is California's electricity the most expensive in the country?

The real thing delaying the energy transition is politics, we have the technology.

And on a really small scale, here in NL we can build our own home battery storage systems with cheap 15kWh or 32kWh battery kits from China. Combine that with dynamic energy contracts it's amazing.

A 15kWh setup is maybe 3500 Euro, and 32kWh around 4500 Euro. Lasts at least 15+ years counting battery cycles.

Using a measurement for power as opposed to energy is dumb with batteries

  12,000 megawatts, equivalent to 12 large nuclear plants, of energy from its battery arrays.

watts are power, not energy. for example, a tea kettle might require 2kilowatts. this does not tell you how much does it cost you to use the tea kettle, because it does not tell you how long the tea kettle is consuming 2kilowatts.