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>Nearly 100% of solar power, of which there is a tremendous amount in Texas in the summer, is going to waste. Most of the wind, of which there's a lot in the pl

>Nearly 100% of solar power, of which there is a tremendous amount in Texas in the summer, is going to waste. Most of the wind, of which there's a lot in the plains of west Texas and the hills of central Texas, is also wasted. It would be interesting to see a source on that, since there still seems to be investment in window and solar. But yeah we need storage to soak up that excess (whatever it is) when it exceeds use. until better storage comes online.

cannonedhamster 7y ago
We've literally had storage systems based on lakes for ages. They use them for coal plants. Find a naturally occurring underground vault of which there are many in Texas find two Chambers of differing height, pump higher when you have excess, reverse when you need more. Initial costs are high but it's cheaper than new plants.
- xyzzyz 7y ago
  Building things deep underground is very expensive. These would have to be enormous vaults, so you’d have to go very deep. Caverns like that are hard to find and hard to map.
- Junk_Collector 7y ago
  All lakes in Texas are artificial. There just aren't many good locations to build new ones and if you did you would have to relocate probably thousands of people currently located along the river. Building underground in Texas is also problematic because of the type of soil in nearly every region. There are also no real mountain ranges that can be used for elevated storage. There is some work on using previous wells as compression storage but the efficiencies on that are poor currently and the setup is very expensive. Careless deployment of underground storage can also cause earthquakes. Texas is one of the largest producers of renewable energy in the world thanks mostly to wind production, but it was not blessed with any great natural options for storing energy. Really though, this just means we need to keep working until we develop an artificial one!

cannonedhamster 7y ago

We've literally had storage systems based on lakes for ages. They use them for coal plants. Find a naturally occurring underground vault of which there are many in Texas find two Chambers of differing height, pump higher when you have excess, reverse when you need more. Initial costs are high but it's cheaper than new plants.

xyzzyz 7y ago
Building things deep underground is very expensive. These would have to be enormous vaults, so you’d have to go very deep. Caverns like that are hard to find and hard to map.
Junk_Collector 7y ago
All lakes in Texas are artificial. There just aren't many good locations to build new ones and if you did you would have to relocate probably thousands of people currently located along the river. Building underground in Texas is also problematic because of the type of soil in nearly every region. There are also no real mountain ranges that can be used for elevated storage. There is some work on using previous wells as compression storage but the efficiencies on that are poor currently and the setup is very expensive. Careless deployment of underground storage can also cause earthquakes. Texas is one of the largest producers of renewable energy in the world thanks mostly to wind production, but it was not blessed with any great natural options for storing energy. Really though, this just means we need to keep working until we develop an artificial one!