3 ms·
Storage. By building out storage, of which there is a plethora of possibilities, then peak production from renewables can be stored and dispatched later. Each
by wffurr 7y ago
Storage.
By building out storage, of which there is a plethora of possibilities, then peak production from renewables can be stored and dispatched later.
Each unit of storage at that point can then displace some amount of baseline generation like coal or nuclear.
- izacus 7y agoWhat kind of storage though? Last I talked to some engineers at powerplants here in EU, they said that pretty much all places where you can build high efficiency storage (accumulation lakes / pumping powerplants) are already taken and in use. Now they state of the art is considering even horribly inefficient storage ( < 25% ) and that's going to require a lot of space and resources.
- cygx 7y agoPossibly power-to-gas. Methane production at 75% efficiency has been demonstrated a while ago[1] and claims of potential round-trip efficencies of up to 80% have been made[2]. This is relevant because Germany's existing gas infrastructure can store several hundreds of TWh. [1] https://www.kit.edu/kit/english/pi_2018_009_power-to-gas-with-high-efficiency.php https://www.kit.edu/kit/english/pi_2018_009_power-to-gas-wit... [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544218320693 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054421...
- manfredo 7y agoStorage at anywhere even remotely close the scale required to displace nuclear and fossil fuel generation remains a fantasy. To put this in perspective, California's largest energy storage facility has as much capacity as the Diablo canyon plant generates every five minutes.