California utilities face resistance to deploying natural gas generators. But the alternative may be dirtier diesel. The report is from consultancy Brattle Group and sponsored by Enchanted Rock, a Texas-based developer of microgrids centered on natural gas generators. It indicates that providing two to four days of backup power for a 10-megawatt community microgrid from solar and batteries alone would require far too much redundant battery capacity — up to 390 megawatt-hours of batteries for 10 megawatts of load — and require up to 90 acres of solar PV to reliably charge them over that time. 

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