> twice the power that our nuclear reactors did
Because California forced Nuclear suppliers to throttle down to "make room for renewables", no idea who thought this decision makes any sense.
Additional context: https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo... ("California Energy Storage System Survey Dashboard")
> The grid has become so expensive due to the cost of fire proofing infrastructure
Power in California was incredibly expensive long before any of the money was going towards fire proofing.
There are some very big outlier exceptions to this however. In a handful of markets (such as the city of Riverside) which are served by a nonprofit municipal power authority with its own generation and distribution, local rates are decoupled from the crises plaguing PGE (and to a lesser extent SDGE, etc).
residential power costs are substantially lower for customers in these areas vs their immediate neighbors - out-of-pocket power bills are as little as half or a third of for-profit statewide utilities for the same sustained consumption during peak usage times.
Between 5 and 10pm yesterday, batteries supplied more than twice the power that our nuclear reactors did: https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/supply
The grid has become so expensive due to the cost of fire proofing infrastructure that residential installs are a no-brainer if you can find someone to do the install for a reasonable price. DIY is even cheaper.