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> Grid-scale battery banks, that's something you would think was perfected back in the fifties or so. Until very recently (and maybe even now) the electric ut
by dreamcompiler 9y ago
> Grid-scale battery banks, that's something you would think was perfected back in the fifties or so.
Until very recently (and maybe even now) the electric utilities spent less on R&D than the dog food industry [0]. Because they didn't need to. There was virtually no need for storage before PV became cheap and fossil fuel became expensive and the regulated monopolies had to start thinking about competition from renewables. Although most of them still haven't recognized this.
[0] https://thebreakthrough.org/archive/dog_food_beats_energy https://thebreakthrough.org/archive/dog_food_beats_energy
- tfolbrecht 9y ago> R&D spending of Vertically integrated companies v. Utilities? For Energy related R&D See: GE, Siemens, BP, Shell, Exxonmobile, not the local gas station. >> Grid-scale battery banks, that's something you would think was perfected back in the fifties or so. When you can scale energy production on demand with knobs and levers, why? Here and now: When do renewables create an excess of energy so great that the baseload power sources can't be scaled back to balance it and greater after that to warrant the infrastructure and efficiency penalty of batteries?
- cardiffspaceman 9y agoAnd yet pumped storage has been on line for decades. According to this brief reference [1] Castaic Lake in the LA DWP system has been doing pumped storage since 1972. [1] http://globalenergyobservatory.org/geoid/282 http://globalenergyobservatory.org/geoid/282
- dreamcompiler 9y agoTrue. Peaking load was one of the few reasons (maybe the only reason) for storage before renewables. Pumped hydro was just about the only option. It works great as long as you have an elevated lake nearby.