6 ms·
Lithium ion can't store electricity across seasons, though, which is important anywhere outside equatorial areas. Gas can be left idle during the Summer, and us
by Brakenshire 11y ago
Lithium ion can't store electricity across seasons, though, which is important anywhere outside equatorial areas. Gas can be left idle during the Summer, and used during the Winter. If the cost of solar power went below the marginal cost for burning gas (i.e. lower than the per unit fuel costs for gas generation), the most cost-effective solution might actually be to use solar during the Summer, and maintain a fleet of gas stations solely for the Winter months.
- usrusr 11y agoOutside equatorial areas, lack of sun coincides with demand for heating. Combined cycle (correction: I meant cogeneration) heating plants are that winter months fleet.
- Brakenshire 11y agoYes, if you could combine gas generation with district heating, that + solar generation really would fit together neatly. Also, there are projects to do the thermodynamic equivalent of district heating over a single home! i.e. you burn gas to produce electricity, and use the waste heat to heat your house or office. A year or two back British Gas was doing a pilot using a gas boiler with a Stirling Engine to generate electricity (called the Ecogen IIRC). It seems to have been difficult/expensive to maintain, but it's an exciting principle. If you had battery storage for solar during the Summer, you could use that equally to buffer that kind of gas generation in the Winter. It seems to me sufficient solar and battery cost reductions effectively solve electricity generation for everywhere close to the equator. Add in that kind of waste heat boiler, generating electricity at a reasonable cost, and you have a solution for almost the whole planet.
- Terribledactyl 11y agoYou could store the electricity through H2O electrolysis, directly burn for heat or reclaim through a fuel cell for electricity.
- peregrine 11y agoCould also use the Hydrogen and CO2 to make methane and utilize existing infrastructure.
- jbpetersen 11y agoBetter yet, those fuel cells can be "charged" wherever energy is plentiful then shipped as needed. Sneakergrid anyone?
- jcoffland 11y agoThis would of course be incredibly inefficient. Maybe you were joking.
- kragen 11y agoElectrolysis is too inefficient for in-place energy storage, but economies of scale could in fact make this acceptably efficient for long-distance energy transport; available solar resource varies by more than a factor of three even within the contiguous US. LNG tankers are already a worldwide business, and LNG equipment can be used to transport hydrogen, albeit at much lower energy density. (Generating methane or ammonia from the hydrogen to improve its transportability might be worthwhile.) Transmission losses in the electric power grid are around 6.5%, but that's because the energy is typically only transmitted a few hundred kilometers; about 4000 km is the longest cost-effective distance for AC power transmission. LNG tankers can travel further than that.
- ssmoot 11y agoIs there an alternative to platinum yet? Fuel cells sound really neat, and I had no idea you could actually by your own until a couple days ago. But the estimate of a small continuous use unit needing to have the catalyst replaced up to annually seems to make them a novelty for now (the existing units that is). Interested in knowing more if you keep up with it though.
- thinkcontext 11y agoElectrolysis is only about 60% efficient. This is why a lot of effort is being put into Concentrating Solar Power which stores heat in molten salt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water#Efficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water#Efficien...
- jcoffland 11y agoStill one of the most efficient energy storage systems is to pump water up a hill. There are losses in evaporation and conversion but these losses are low when compared to batteries. A system where we used solar power to pump sea water up into a man made reservoir would be very interesting.
- epistasis 11y agoRound trip efficiency of pumped hydro is 70%-80%, maybe up to 87% according to some people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit... A standard lithium ion batter is at 87% in the worst case, when it's AC-DC-storage-DC-AC. Going direct from solar panels to storage would save one trip: http://www.catalyticengineering.com/top-ten-facts-about-teslas-350kwh-powerwall-battery/ http://www.catalyticengineering.com/top-ten-facts-about-tesl... In any case, the efficiency of storage is only one aspect; it limits how cheap the storage can potentially be, but electricity lost due to inefficiency is not the primary driver of storage cost with any of the currently used technologies.
- dv_dt 11y agoWhat's fascinating is some of the research around combined solar & battery designs which to merge the two functions on a materials level.
- epistasis 11y agoI haven't heard of this, do you have any suggested reading material?
- dv_dt 11y agoI was mostly thinking of this research at Ohio State https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150801082647.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150801082647.h... But I think there may be other areas that I'm not finding specifically right now... ("solar battery" is a poor search term for this research...)
- basicplus2 11y agocomposite thin cylindrical flywheels have great energy storage characteristics "greater than 400 Wh/kg can be achieved by certain composite materials" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage -----