3 ms·

People say this, but they never explain where the power will come from when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining. I hear people throw out "batteries

People say this, but they never explain where the power will come from when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining. I hear people throw out "batteries" as if that word is some sort of solution.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
There are several islands already running on solar, wind, and batteries alone. If every six months the rate at which a million EVs are sold, how much battery storage is that over the next decade? My math says tens of GWs.
- jabl 8y ago
  > There are several islands already running on solar, wind, and batteries alone. EDIT Which is awesome, and surely beats running diesel generators! Which presumably don't have large, dense cities nor heavy industry? > If every six months the rate at which a million EVs are sold, how much battery storage is that over the next decade? My math says tens of GWs. Battery costs are orders of magnitude too high to make sense for anything but very short term storage. Yes, they are fantastic for some ancillary services like frequency control. And with lots of solar and air conditioning, might allow you to get past the duck curve hump in the evenings. Providing energy for a couple weeks when a high pressure system has parked on your country and wind produces 0? Forget it.
  - dv_dt 8y ago
    Iceland has a lot of industrial aluminum smelting operations there because they have very low cost renewable hydro power... Flow batteries will come online to carry the storage past where high volume production lithium cost savings can't reach. I think if we put nearly the same or as consistent capital into renewable as we put into even the last decade of fossil fuel discovery, we'll find that costs drop very very rapidly. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2019/03/13/worlds-first-flow-battery-gets-10-years-of-performance-insurance/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2019/03/13/worlds-first-flow-bat...
zanny 8y ago
You build these[1]. When the sun shines and the wind blows excess power reverses the turbines, when there is demand on the grid water flows and turbines spin back to generate power. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station
- xyzzyz 8y ago
  The project – begun in 1974 and costing £425 million[6] So, constructing this storage facility costed basically as much as constructing an actual nuclear power plant in 1970s of equivalent generating capacity. Thus, if instead of these, we simply build nuclear plants, we'll likely save money and won't have to deal with instability of generation.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
pfdietz 8y ago
Nuclear proponents bring this up, but it's not an argument that saves nuclear. Nuclear is quite horrible at providing backup power, since it has large fixed costs. In a cost optimized no-CO2 system, you'll see renewables providing immediate power, short term storage (batteries, pumped hydro) carrying over shorter outages, and some sort of peaking capacity for longer lulls in sun/wind. Overcapacity of the renewables + longer distance transmission will help, as will end-user storage of heat/cold. The peaking capacity will be used only a small fraction of the time, and will be powered by hydrogen (either from electrolysis from excess renewable output, or from NG steadily reformed to H2 and the H2 stored for use during the peaks, and the CO2 from the reformers sequestered). Simple cycle plants are ~40% efficient and cost < $400/kW.

toomuchtodo 8y ago

There are several islands already running on solar, wind, and batteries alone. If every six months the rate at which a million EVs are sold, how much battery storage is that over the next decade? My math says tens of GWs.

jabl 8y ago
> There are several islands already running on solar, wind, and batteries alone. EDIT Which is awesome, and surely beats running diesel generators! Which presumably don't have large, dense cities nor heavy industry? > If every six months the rate at which a million EVs are sold, how much battery storage is that over the next decade? My math says tens of GWs. Battery costs are orders of magnitude too high to make sense for anything but very short term storage. Yes, they are fantastic for some ancillary services like frequency control. And with lots of solar and air conditioning, might allow you to get past the duck curve hump in the evenings. Providing energy for a couple weeks when a high pressure system has parked on your country and wind produces 0? Forget it.
- dv_dt 8y ago
  Iceland has a lot of industrial aluminum smelting operations there because they have very low cost renewable hydro power... Flow batteries will come online to carry the storage past where high volume production lithium cost savings can't reach. I think if we put nearly the same or as consistent capital into renewable as we put into even the last decade of fossil fuel discovery, we'll find that costs drop very very rapidly. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2019/03/13/worlds-first-flow-battery-gets-10-years-of-performance-insurance/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2019/03/13/worlds-first-flow-bat...

zanny 8y ago

You build these[1]. When the sun shines and the wind blows excess power reverses the turbines, when there is demand on the grid water flows and turbines spin back to generate power. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

xyzzyz 8y ago
The project – begun in 1974 and costing £425 million[6] So, constructing this storage facility costed basically as much as constructing an actual nuclear power plant in 1970s of equivalent generating capacity. Thus, if instead of these, we simply build nuclear plants, we'll likely save money and won't have to deal with instability of generation.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

pfdietz 8y ago

Nuclear proponents bring this up, but it's not an argument that saves nuclear. Nuclear is quite horrible at providing backup power, since it has large fixed costs. In a cost optimized no-CO2 system, you'll see renewables providing immediate power, short term storage (batteries, pumped hydro) carrying over shorter outages, and some sort of peaking capacity for longer lulls in sun/wind. Overcapacity of the renewables + longer distance transmission will help, as will end-user storage of heat/cold. The peaking capacity will be used only a small fraction of the time, and will be powered by hydrogen (either from electrolysis from excess renewable output, or from NG steadily reformed to H2 and the H2 stored for use during the peaks, and the CO2 from the reformers sequestered). Simple cycle plants are ~40% efficient and cost < $400/kW.