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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93ASEAN_Power_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93ASEAN_Power_... 10GW plant with a 30GWh batter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93ASEAN_Power_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93ASEAN_Power_... 10GW plant with a 30GWh battery. The enormous South Australia battery Musk put in is about 125MWh - 0.5% of that size.

microcolonel 6y ago
Imagine if the whole United States had the geography of Nevada, and you'll see how attractive solar is to Australia.
- dylan604 6y ago
  I'd be willing to give up Vegas to turn Nevada into a giant solar farm.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    Vegas is tiny compared to Nevada. You can have both. Nevada has lots of rocky terrain and winter snows, though, so much wouldn't be usable.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    The electrical power of the entire USA could be supplied by a PV station much smaller than Nevada. In the desert southwest you can average 6 kW-h/day/m^2 over a full year. Nation consumes approximately 4.2 PW-h/year. Therefore you need about 2 billion square meters of PV panels (2E9 x 6E3 x 365.25 =~ 4.4E15). That's an area of only 45 km per side (45000 x 45000 > 2E9). Nevada is about 500km wide and has an area of almost 300 billion square meters. So you'd need about 1% of Nevada to power the whole country.
    - lostlogin 6y ago
      One decent hailstorm or other extreme weather event would have quite the impact.
gumby 6y ago
Not to say batteries aren’t crucial, but you are comparing apples and oranges. That battery is only used for a very small peak / corner case and at least when I looked at the numbers last year hadn’t yet paid for its cost, despite some breathless claims. I do expect it to pay off though. The entire demand for a battery like that for a country like Australia is probably one unit. And it’s no accident that it was installed in south Australia, not one of the more densely settled states. It was a good PR stunt, but doesn’t really teach anything special.
- ggm 6y ago
  It's been a lot more than a PR stunt, it's alerted the community to severe market distorting pricing practices and saved the state millions. It's already running in profit on the part which is not contracted to prevent bidding wars and it's being extended physically. It did have a huge PR element in its deployment but it's real, and it does a real job. It's role in frequency stabilisation stopped potential blackouts when long lines to NSW and Victoria died. (Islanding SA and potentially causing rolling blackouts from frequency instability)
- nmfisher 6y ago
  > And it’s no accident that it was installed in south Australia, not one of the more densely settled states. It was installed in South Australia because the whole state suffered a blackout in 2016 from an overloaded transmission network. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_South_Australian_blackout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_South_Australian_blackout The other Australian states didn't have the pressing need, but I don't see why it wouldn't be equally feasible.
- nl 6y ago
  > when I looked at the numbers last year hadn’t yet paid for its cost, despite some breathless claims. Well.. of course? 2 years payoff would seem unbelievably fast for any infrastructure project. It did save $40M last year alone though (the project cost $86M). > The entire demand for a battery like that for a country like Australia is probably one unit. And it’s no accident that it was installed in south Australia, not one of the more densely settled states. Err.. no. There are around 40 proposed or signed projects in Australia larger than that battery. Here is a signed one being built now with a 400 MWh battery: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06/26/australia-approves-720-mw-solar-farm-coupled-with-massive-battery/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06/26/australia-approves-72... The Lake Bonney 50MWh battery has been around for nearly 2 years now: https://www.infigenenergy.com/our-assets/firming-assets/ https://www.infigenenergy.com/our-assets/firming-assets/ Approved 600MWh project in Geelong: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/04/07/australia-to-host-600-mw-battery/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/04/07/australia-to-host-600... Another 14 projects here in NSW alone (many of which are pumped hydro or compressed air or other interesting forms of storage): https://reneweconomy.com.au/fourteen-new-big-battery-storage-projects-proposed-for-nsw-37202/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/fourteen-new-big-battery-storage...
briffle 6y ago
It would be interesting to see those huge tesla batteries on a large ship,(like a retired oil supertanker) charging at one point, and discharging at the destination. Leave enough to power the ship back home, and just have several of them. Probably not as efficient as power lines, but could go to multiple destinations.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- teruakohatu 6y ago
  Singapore is already supplied with energy from ships (natural gas). So energy density will determine how many ships would be required. Depending on conversion efficiency, we are talking 50-150x as many lipo ships as natural gas ships. If Singapore only needed one natural gas very large super tanker, we would need to increase the global feet of super tankers by 7-20% just to ship electrical energy to Singapore.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    Lets do the math: Cheap LFP batteries get around 160-170wh/kg. Largest supertankers have net tonnage of around 250000. 250000000 * 170 = 42.5GWH. Quite respectable. Karadeniz (the biggest floating powerplant operator) has actually floated the idea.
    - Reason077 6y ago
      Another option for "shipping electricity" is compressed hydrogen. Electricity + water goes in at one end (electrolysis), then converts back to electricity + water at the other (fuel cells). Hydrogen has significant inefficiencies and conversion losses compared to batteries, but the energy density is much higher (up to 40,000 Wh/kg)
      - lostlogin 6y ago
        There is mention in this thread of solar power prices going negative for suppliers at times. This would make suggestions like this even more favourable.

microcolonel 6y ago

Imagine if the whole United States had the geography of Nevada, and you'll see how attractive solar is to Australia.

dylan604 6y ago
I'd be willing to give up Vegas to turn Nevada into a giant solar farm.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  Vegas is tiny compared to Nevada. You can have both. Nevada has lots of rocky terrain and winter snows, though, so much wouldn't be usable.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  The electrical power of the entire USA could be supplied by a PV station much smaller than Nevada. In the desert southwest you can average 6 kW-h/day/m^2 over a full year. Nation consumes approximately 4.2 PW-h/year. Therefore you need about 2 billion square meters of PV panels (2E9 x 6E3 x 365.25 =~ 4.4E15). That's an area of only 45 km per side (45000 x 45000 > 2E9). Nevada is about 500km wide and has an area of almost 300 billion square meters. So you'd need about 1% of Nevada to power the whole country.
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    One decent hailstorm or other extreme weather event would have quite the impact.

gumby 6y ago

Not to say batteries aren’t crucial, but you are comparing apples and oranges. That battery is only used for a very small peak / corner case and at least when I looked at the numbers last year hadn’t yet paid for its cost, despite some breathless claims. I do expect it to pay off though. The entire demand for a battery like that for a country like Australia is probably one unit. And it’s no accident that it was installed in south Australia, not one of the more densely settled states. It was a good PR stunt, but doesn’t really teach anything special.

ggm 6y ago
It's been a lot more than a PR stunt, it's alerted the community to severe market distorting pricing practices and saved the state millions. It's already running in profit on the part which is not contracted to prevent bidding wars and it's being extended physically. It did have a huge PR element in its deployment but it's real, and it does a real job. It's role in frequency stabilisation stopped potential blackouts when long lines to NSW and Victoria died. (Islanding SA and potentially causing rolling blackouts from frequency instability)
nmfisher 6y ago
> And it’s no accident that it was installed in south Australia, not one of the more densely settled states. It was installed in South Australia because the whole state suffered a blackout in 2016 from an overloaded transmission network. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_South_Australian_blackout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_South_Australian_blackout The other Australian states didn't have the pressing need, but I don't see why it wouldn't be equally feasible.
nl 6y ago
> when I looked at the numbers last year hadn’t yet paid for its cost, despite some breathless claims. Well.. of course? 2 years payoff would seem unbelievably fast for any infrastructure project. It did save $40M last year alone though (the project cost $86M). > The entire demand for a battery like that for a country like Australia is probably one unit. And it’s no accident that it was installed in south Australia, not one of the more densely settled states. Err.. no. There are around 40 proposed or signed projects in Australia larger than that battery. Here is a signed one being built now with a 400 MWh battery: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06/26/australia-approves-720-mw-solar-farm-coupled-with-massive-battery/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06/26/australia-approves-72... The Lake Bonney 50MWh battery has been around for nearly 2 years now: https://www.infigenenergy.com/our-assets/firming-assets/ https://www.infigenenergy.com/our-assets/firming-assets/ Approved 600MWh project in Geelong: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/04/07/australia-to-host-600-mw-battery/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/04/07/australia-to-host-600... Another 14 projects here in NSW alone (many of which are pumped hydro or compressed air or other interesting forms of storage): https://reneweconomy.com.au/fourteen-new-big-battery-storage-projects-proposed-for-nsw-37202/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/fourteen-new-big-battery-storage...

briffle 6y ago

It would be interesting to see those huge tesla batteries on a large ship,(like a retired oil supertanker) charging at one point, and discharging at the destination. Leave enough to power the ship back home, and just have several of them. Probably not as efficient as power lines, but could go to multiple destinations.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
teruakohatu 6y ago
Singapore is already supplied with energy from ships (natural gas). So energy density will determine how many ships would be required. Depending on conversion efficiency, we are talking 50-150x as many lipo ships as natural gas ships. If Singapore only needed one natural gas very large super tanker, we would need to increase the global feet of super tankers by 7-20% just to ship electrical energy to Singapore.
- baybal2 6y ago
  Lets do the math: Cheap LFP batteries get around 160-170wh/kg. Largest supertankers have net tonnage of around 250000. 250000000 * 170 = 42.5GWH. Quite respectable. Karadeniz (the biggest floating powerplant operator) has actually floated the idea.
  - Reason077 6y ago
    Another option for "shipping electricity" is compressed hydrogen. Electricity + water goes in at one end (electrolysis), then converts back to electricity + water at the other (fuel cells). Hydrogen has significant inefficiencies and conversion losses compared to batteries, but the energy density is much higher (up to 40,000 Wh/kg)
    - lostlogin 6y ago
      There is mention in this thread of solar power prices going negative for suppliers at times. This would make suggestions like this even more favourable.