5 ms·

just like cost effective and environmentally advantageous grid scale batteries at the scales required to smooth day and week scale intermittency

toomuchtodo 6y ago
EDIT: My comment was made before you edited your comment from "just like cost effective grid scale batteries" to what it is now. http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-grid-energy-storage-factsheet http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-grid-energy-storage-facts... * In 2020, the U.S. had over 23.2 GW of capacity in energy storage compared to 1,100 GW of total installed generation capacity. * Globally, installed energy storage capacity totaled 173.6 GW. * 1,355 energy storage projects were operational globally in 2020, with 11 projects under construction. 40% of operational projects are located in the U.S. * California leads the U.S. in energy storage with 215 operational projects (4.2 GW), followed by Hawaii, New York, and Texas. https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/broad-reach-power-starts-building-biggest-batteries-in-texas https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/broad-reach-pow... "Two of the planned 10 MW batteries are up and running already, with a total of 10 expected online by year's end, Vavrik said. That means that BRP and Key Capture are running neck and neck for operational capacity in Texas. The title of biggest battery operator in the state could change hands repeatedly based on the order in which those companies' projects wrap up. The broader story is that multiple experienced energy investors are converging on Texas simultaneously. The interconnection queue contains more than two dozen batteries that are each larger than 100 megawatts; some go up to 300, 400, even 500 megawatts."
- andromeduck 6y ago
  Yes you're missing the point. Most of that storage is hydro and there's a huge gulf between what's required to cover prolonged lulls in such as weeks as was observed recently in Texas and regularly elsewhere - and to peak shave, regulate frequency, and cover until CCGTs can spin up as we have now. Until we start getting to the multi-GWh scale it's a nonstarter. Again, you either think climate change is an existential problem in which case relying on magic pixiedust in the future is an absurd, or you don't. There's no two ways about it.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    I think we disagree about what a future energy grid looks like, and that's okay. I enjoy the conversation regardless!
- sir_bearington 6y ago
  To put these in perspective, the US consumes 500 GWh of electricity every hour. Of the 23 GWh of existing storage, 20 GWh come in the form of hydroelectricity. 100 MWh of storage only amounts to 1.4 seconds of electricity storage. We don't need megawatt hours worth of storage. We don't need gigawatt hours worth of storage. We need terawatt hours worth of storage. We're 6+ orders of magnitude off between the amount of storage necessary, and the storage we can feasibly build.
  - Armisael16 6y ago
    Why would an continent-scale entity need days or weeks of power storage?
    - AstralStorm 6y ago
      Even hours runs hundreds of gigawatts. Spanning a continent only helps wind power and not solar power.
      - Armisael16 6y ago
        One day of power storage would be 12 TWh (using the 500 GW number in the post I responded to). That’s ~2.7 orders of magnitude time larger than the cited current installed storage, which isn’t even remotely 6+ orders of magnitude. Even if you entirely ignore that hydro component and only look at the 3 GWh number, that’s still only ~3.6 orders of magnitude less than what we’d need for a whole day with no power generation whatsoever. Their numbers are talking about enough storage to maintain current usage for half a year. To your second comment: spanning a continent does actually help with solar, since the sun is up at different times on the two coasts - that buys you several extra hours of power each day. Also obstructive weather patterns tend to not reach that far.
        andromeduck 6y ago
        1. Weeklong disruptions are a thing and would occur in the event of month long plumes from forest fires, major volcanic activity or other long tail natural disasters. 2. Relying on such a tightly coupled national grid as required to deploy that storage is a recipe for disaster in the event of any war or unconventional conflict. A few shut down transmission lines or stations could cripple entire national economy. 3. Overbuilding completely ignores the very real human and environmental costs of doing so. Rare earths are not very green, forced labor as used by much of the solar industry not very humane. You are condemning millions today to hypothetical harm to thousands tomorrow. It's insanity.

toomuchtodo 6y ago

EDIT: My comment was made before you edited your comment from "just like cost effective grid scale batteries" to what it is now. http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-grid-energy-storage-factsheet http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-grid-energy-storage-facts... * In 2020, the U.S. had over 23.2 GW of capacity in energy storage compared to 1,100 GW of total installed generation capacity. * Globally, installed energy storage capacity totaled 173.6 GW. * 1,355 energy storage projects were operational globally in 2020, with 11 projects under construction. 40% of operational projects are located in the U.S. * California leads the U.S. in energy storage with 215 operational projects (4.2 GW), followed by Hawaii, New York, and Texas. https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/broad-reach-power-starts-building-biggest-batteries-in-texas https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/broad-reach-pow... "Two of the planned 10 MW batteries are up and running already, with a total of 10 expected online by year's end, Vavrik said. That means that BRP and Key Capture are running neck and neck for operational capacity in Texas. The title of biggest battery operator in the state could change hands repeatedly based on the order in which those companies' projects wrap up. The broader story is that multiple experienced energy investors are converging on Texas simultaneously. The interconnection queue contains more than two dozen batteries that are each larger than 100 megawatts; some go up to 300, 400, even 500 megawatts."

andromeduck 6y ago
Yes you're missing the point. Most of that storage is hydro and there's a huge gulf between what's required to cover prolonged lulls in such as weeks as was observed recently in Texas and regularly elsewhere - and to peak shave, regulate frequency, and cover until CCGTs can spin up as we have now. Until we start getting to the multi-GWh scale it's a nonstarter. Again, you either think climate change is an existential problem in which case relying on magic pixiedust in the future is an absurd, or you don't. There's no two ways about it.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  I think we disagree about what a future energy grid looks like, and that's okay. I enjoy the conversation regardless!
sir_bearington 6y ago
To put these in perspective, the US consumes 500 GWh of electricity every hour. Of the 23 GWh of existing storage, 20 GWh come in the form of hydroelectricity. 100 MWh of storage only amounts to 1.4 seconds of electricity storage. We don't need megawatt hours worth of storage. We don't need gigawatt hours worth of storage. We need terawatt hours worth of storage. We're 6+ orders of magnitude off between the amount of storage necessary, and the storage we can feasibly build.
- Armisael16 6y ago
  Why would an continent-scale entity need days or weeks of power storage?
  - AstralStorm 6y ago
    Even hours runs hundreds of gigawatts. Spanning a continent only helps wind power and not solar power.
    - Armisael16 6y ago
      One day of power storage would be 12 TWh (using the 500 GW number in the post I responded to). That’s ~2.7 orders of magnitude time larger than the cited current installed storage, which isn’t even remotely 6+ orders of magnitude. Even if you entirely ignore that hydro component and only look at the 3 GWh number, that’s still only ~3.6 orders of magnitude less than what we’d need for a whole day with no power generation whatsoever. Their numbers are talking about enough storage to maintain current usage for half a year. To your second comment: spanning a continent does actually help with solar, since the sun is up at different times on the two coasts - that buys you several extra hours of power each day. Also obstructive weather patterns tend to not reach that far.
      - andromeduck 6y ago
        1. Weeklong disruptions are a thing and would occur in the event of month long plumes from forest fires, major volcanic activity or other long tail natural disasters. 2. Relying on such a tightly coupled national grid as required to deploy that storage is a recipe for disaster in the event of any war or unconventional conflict. A few shut down transmission lines or stations could cripple entire national economy. 3. Overbuilding completely ignores the very real human and environmental costs of doing so. Rare earths are not very green, forced labor as used by much of the solar industry not very humane. You are condemning millions today to hypothetical harm to thousands tomorrow. It's insanity.