581
Some key insights from the article:
Basically, what they did was to look at how much batteries would be needed in a given area to provide constant power supply at least 97% of the time, and the calculate the costs of that solar+battery setup compared to coal and nuclear.
As others have said this is for Las Vegas which receives wayyy more sun than the average place. But the other misleading part is they looked at 20 years which is close to the life cycle for solar/batteries and not even half the life of nuclear
From the dot graph, it implies that las Vegas is one of the worse options? And Birmingham is somehow best?
Not sure I'm reading that right?
My understanding of that graph is how do you flatten peak energy demands, Birmingham is flat and throughout the year because you have some parts of the year where you need very little battery capacity and other parts where you need a lot. Las Vegas basically always needs a lot because of how hot it gets they end up with huge amounts of peak energy usage