6 ms·
Why energy storage sucks
- brownbat 11y agoSurprised there's no mention of Vanadium Redox as an alternative that solves several of these problems even better than Lithium Ion. They can be fully cycled over 100,000 times (compare to Li-ion's 400-1200, lead's 500-800) and are expected to last 20 to 30 years. They can stay in a single state for long periods of time without degradation and can be rapidly and efficiently charged or discharged. There's also no fire risk. The biggest downside is size and weight. A refrigerator sized VRB in the attic of a house would work, but that is a dealbreaker for some/most people. These certainly won't go in cars, but as stationary appliances for those with the space, they would work extremely well for solar storage. DOE factsheet: http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/VRB.pdf http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/VRB.pdf Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery
- DiabloD3 11y agoCopper hexacyanoferrate batteries are supposed to last at least 40,000 times (compared to what the study on this I read awhile back quoted as Li-ion as 400), yet have the energy density of li-ion. They just haven't produced a commercializable version of the technology yet.
- masklinn 11y ago> A refrigerator sized VRB in the attic of a house would work, but that is a dealbreaker for some/most people. Even a refrigerator-sized VRB doesn't store that much energy, that's ~650 liters so about 40MJ, under 1.5L worth of fuel. And more importantly it weights half a tonne and (assuming it has the same shape as a standard fridge) has an area density of ~1.5t/m^2.
- mikeash 11y ago40MJ is a bit over 11kWh, which should be enough to run a typical house overnight. My house uses something like 500W average, not counting the car, so it could run almost a full day on this. For a stationary application, half a ton doesn't seem like a big deal. Surely a normal house can hold up that much weight? That's equivalent to only six or seven people. If the weight is a problem, put it on the ground level or in the basement.
- pjc50 11y agoPersonal VRBs make about as much sense as having your own gas turbine, but utility-scale ones for peak demand response make a lot of sense.
- aidenn0 11y agoSpeaking of having your own gas turbine, that was my existence proof a while back for how to handle events where lots of people want to charge there cars all at the same time: 30MW in a trailer http://www.pwps.com/gas-turbines/30-mw-mobile.html http://www.pwps.com/gas-turbines/30-mw-mobile.html Granted there are almost certainly better solutions, but anywhere we can deliver NG to, we can deliver stupendous amounts of electricity to, for a price.
- jhallenworld 11y agoGas turbines have a loudness problem, but there are natural gas reciprocating engine co-generation plants available for your house: http://world.honda.com/powerproducts-technology/cogeneration/ http://world.honda.com/powerproducts-technology/cogeneration...
- out_of_protocol 11y agoBetter flow batteries under development: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery Some as good as li-ion, potentially great replacement for the cars (someone actually built a car powered by flow batteries, take a look: http://www.gizmag.com/900-hp-supercar-flow-battery/31091/ http://www.gizmag.com/900-hp-supercar-flow-battery/31091/)
- NickM 11y agocompare to Li-ion's 400-1200 This may be true for some kinds of li-ion batteries, but they can be engineered to last much longer than that. Tesla's daily cycle home battery is warrantied for 5,000 cycles, for example. Assuming the battery doesn't die the day the warranty expires, this should give you at least 15 years of life. Not quite the 20 to 30 you're quoting, but current prices are much cheaper (and this seems likely to remain true, as vanadium in inherently expensive, and li-ion batteries have a head start in economies of scale). With massively reduced size and weight, shipping and installation should be much lower as well, and I suspect consumer uptake will likely be much higher for the foreseeable future.
- davedx 11y agoI really want to read this article, but there are too many spelling and grammar mistakes or lack of punctuation. Please consider spellchecking it?
- kba 11y agoI absolutely agree. Already after the first sentence, I was questioning whether I was suffering from aphasia or having a stroke. It surprises me that someone would publish an article like that without having proofread it at all.
- Cyph0n 11y agoI didn't notice anything serious. Perhaps you should try to tone down your "superior grammar" dial?
- anonymousDan 11y agoNah, he's right it's practically unreadable.
- Cyph0n 11y agoUnreadable? Sorry to tell you this, but your standards are unpractically high. Welcome to the real world, where not everything is how you want it :p I'm sure that with such an attidtude, you'll be learning a lot from people with different backgrounds and cultures. /s
- DiabloD3 11y agoSo what happened to the idea of using some modern version of flywheels to store power?
- pjc50 11y agoThey were deployed in Formula 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy_recovery_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy_recovery_system I'm not aware of any building or utility-scale systems.
- mhandley 11y agoThere are a few utility-scale flywheel systems deployed: http://beaconpower.com/stephentown-new-york/ http://beaconpower.com/stephentown-new-york/
- misnome 11y agoLaboratories such as JET (fusion research) use them, because they cannot draw enough power from the grid: https://www.euro-fusion.org/fusion/jet-tech/jets-flywheels/ https://www.euro-fusion.org/fusion/jet-tech/jets-flywheels/
- sageikosa 11y agoI've seen some in data-centers, mostly to filter out noise and provide continuation between power main failure and generator kick-in.
- masklinn 11y agoFresno City has approved an Amber Kinetics project for flywheel-based large-scale solar storage: http://kvpr.org/post/fresno-project-store-solar-electricity-using-flywheel http://kvpr.org/post/fresno-project-store-solar-electricity-... The company advertises 160kWh/TEU (as 40ft container units): http://amberkinetics.com/products/ http://amberkinetics.com/products/
- hannob 11y agoFlywheels target a bit of a different problem than many other energy storage solutions. They are only able to store energy for very short periods. This is valuable to counter short term changes in the power generation, but it won't help you to store solar power for longer dark periods. Wikipedia has some info about existing installations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_storage_power_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_storage_power_system tl;dr Only a few of them exist, they haven't been installed in large quantities yet.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Faaak 11y agoEnergy storage not only consists of batteries… Pumped hydro, for example, works well and does not decays over time.
- masklinn 11y agoPumped hydro is absolutely great, but it's an option for tremendous (grid-level) scales, and requires convenient locations (e.g. a hilltop you can "blow up" with a large stream nearby, or a standard dam with a lake or lake-able location close to its foot). It's way, way beyond the scales the article is talking about (note the picture from a health clinic in Rwanda).
- bloat 11y agoHow big of a tank on your roof do you need to replace a box of lead acid batteries?
- msandford 11y agoIs your house 100 feet tall or taller, and I hope your whole house is made out of structural steel.
- mhandley 11y agoA 12V deep-discharge lead-acid battery is typically 120amp-hours. That's 1.4kWh. Suppose you only 50% discharge it for longevity, that's 700Wh. I'll assume your box of batteries has ten of them, so a usable capacity of 7kWh. 1kWh = 3.6MJ, so 7kWh = 25MJ How high is your roof? Lets say 10 metres. Potential energy U = mgh. (m=mass in kg). h=10, g~=10, so U=100*m. So, to equal those batteries, assuming 100% efficiency, the mass of water needs to be 250000 kg, or 250 tonnes. Probably going to need to reinforce the loft.
- Dylan16807 11y agoSo 'roof' is clearly out of the question. Now let's look at basement. I install a 4x4x2 meter tank, then drill down 100 meters to create another such tank. 32 tonnes lifted 100 meters gives me 32MJ, perfect. Now how expensive is it to build a water storage area underground? Is this a 50 thousand dollar project or a 50 million dollar project? If the ground water is at the right depth, you would only need to drill a well. So this should be practical somewhere, at least.
- paulsutter 11y agoPumped hydro is much cheaper than batteries per KW (max storage rate) and KWh (storage capacity) is limited only by reservoir size. The roundtrip efficiency is about 80% and it's able to store for months at a time. Heindl Energy in Germany is developing hydraulic storage, which can work even on flat ground (basically, raising a rock formation with pumped water). They've designed capacities up to 120GWh: http://www.heindl-energy.com/hydraulic-rock-storage/idea-function.html http://www.heindl-energy.com/hydraulic-rock-storage/idea-fun...
- cplease 11y agoOf course. Despite the title the article is only about off-grid storage, basically batteries. Though even off-grid storage can be on-grid if it's sometimes connected, as some plans for the future of plug-in hybrids call foresee. Sadly you cannot very well use a miniature hydroelectric dam for off-grid energy storage on-board an electric car or electronic mobile device.
- aolagers 11y agoPumped hydro is interesting but the reservoir requirements are huuuge. This post makes a very convincing case that scaling it up is not that simple: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/pump-up-the-stor... There is some discussion about the German rock variation in the comments. The density doesn't seem to help THAT much compared to water only.
- iolothebard 11y agoWonder how this works in relation to the earthquakes we're getting here in Oklahoma due to injection wells.
- infogulch 11y agoDensity isn't the only benefit of this system. At these scales, the water requirements alone are significant. This replaces many cubic meters of that water with rock.
- mangecoeur 11y agoVery limited view of energy storage tech frankly. Quick list of things I am aware of (some deployed and some in labs) - Pumped hydro, by far the most widespread - Flywheel storage, used at grid scales for frequency regulation - Thermal storage used in conjunction with solar power using various materials - molten salt, HTF, hot dry rock - Many different battery chemistries: - High temperature batteries (e.g. ZEBRA batteries specifically developed for cost effective grid scale storages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium%E2%80%93sulfur_battery) - Sodium-ion batteries - Metal hydride batteries - Redox flow batteries such as zinc-air systems - Compressed air storage - Phase change storage, including hybrid compressed/liquefied air storage - Seasonal thermal storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_thermal_energy_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_thermal_energy_storag... - Water electrolysis + hydrogen fuel cell cycle Probably missed a bunch too. All to say there are a lot more solutions then lead-acids and lithium batteries- although in fairness those are the most accessible options in small scale systems
- dangravell 11y agoSome interesting products utilising PCMs in the domestic hot water markets... Replacing traditional hot water cylinders which suffer from very high heat loss even when insulated.
- specialist 11y agoHad to look up PCM, which stands for phase-change materials. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-change_material https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-change_material Found a few vendors of various interesting products, here's just one: http://www.pcmproducts.net http://www.pcmproducts.net Found a few articles advocating water heaters using PCM. Sounds cool. Aside: I've tried HotSnapZ brand hand warmers. They're reusable. Neat. I should have guessed this strategy could be scaled up for bigger applications. http://hotsnapz.com/FAQ.html http://hotsnapz.com/FAQ.html
- semi-extrinsic 11y agoThe economics aren't great for replacing a hot water cylinder with something more efficient. According to this [1] a typical hot water cylinder wastes less than 2000 kWh per year. That's a yearly expense of less than $400. This means a replacement system aiming to break even over five years must cost less than $2000. Replacing a hot water cylinder with a bog standard new one costs at least $1000. Thus the PCM heater must be essentially as cheap as existing solutions, and so it faces the challenge of not being able to get enough initial volume to get the cost below break-even. Government subsidies are probably the only way to make it work. [1] http://www.solarblogger.net/2012/11/heat-losses-from-hot-water-cylinders.html?m=1 http://www.solarblogger.net/2012/11/heat-losses-from-hot-wat...
- jsingleton 11y agoThere are broadly two types of energy storage. Grid scale and domestic. This article is about the latter as it focuses on certain batteries. It's actually pretty interesting but the scope is narrow. Domestic is important as it can leapfrog other tech in places without a reliable grid. Much like mobile phones leapfrogged fixed lines in Africa. There are lots of options for the grid but only batteries really work at a small scale. For more on this watch this recent video from Al Gore: https://www.ted.com/talks/al_gore_the_case_for_optimism_on_climate_change https://www.ted.com/talks/al_gore_the_case_for_optimism_on_c... At grid scale you can have exotic types of batteries, pumped storage and other things. For example, there are plans to double Cruachan: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35666993 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35666993
- spenrose 11y agoFor medium.com would it make sense to include the username in the title, like this: Why energy storage sucks (medium.com/@atilev)
- zackmorris 11y agoThe comment I was writing turned into a blog post, so I'll just post the links. IMHO these are trending towards solving many of the problems faced by alternative energy generation and storage: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/02/04/465568055/morocco-unveils-a-massive-solar-power-plant-in-the-sahara http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/02/04/465568055/... http://www.wsj.com/articles/energy-storage-startup-lightsail-plots-long-term-game-plan-1456110323 http://www.wsj.com/articles/energy-storage-startup-lightsail... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel–iron_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel–iron_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium–sulfur_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium–sulfur_battery https://www.littleboxchallenge.com https://www.littleboxchallenge.com https://www.littleboxchallenge.com/pdf/finalists/56568-Tech.pdf https://www.littleboxchallenge.com/pdf/finalists/56568-Tech.... <- PDF
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- pocketstar 11y agoNo mention of Ni-Fe batteries, they are significantly more robust than LA or Li and have 30+ year lives.
- 3327 11y agoGreat article from a practical standpoint of what is actually deployed and small scale.