5 ms·

Batteries are already there. We can get them at $100/kWh now. Also generally these wind turbines cost a million US$ per MW, so this turbine is around US$16 mill

by N1H1L 5y ago

Batteries are already there. We can get them at $100/kWh now. Also generally these wind turbines cost a million US$ per MW, so this turbine is around US$16 million. A day of storage at 50% capacity factor for this would then cost US$ 19 million.

eldaisfish 5y ago
>We can get them at $100/kWh now. The problem with battery energy storage is not cost but scale. There isn't a battery in the world that can power a gigawatt scale electric grid for more than a few minutes. The original point is a good one - no renewable generation technology is a replacement for coal/gas/nuclear simply due to the unpredictable and variable nature of renewable generation. Edit - it is very telling that information and views that go against the grain of "renewable energy is the sole future" are instantly downvoted. Shame on you.
- NineStarPoint 5y ago
  I suspect you’re being downvoted because it isn’t a very well formulated negative. The problem is indeed scale, but there not being a battery setup in the world that could singlehandedly fix the issue isn’t the problem. You can have a lot of smaller battery setups if the batteries are cost efficient enough and you have a suitably flexible grid. The actual issues are the cost efficiency of batteries, the amount of batteries that can be produced in total, and the flexibility of the power grid. Flexibility of the power grid is a known solvable problem, although how much it will cost to improve our infrastructure there is an important question. The point you were responding to was presumably arguing that $100kw/h batteries exist, and that that’s cost efficient enough. The questions are A) Is it true batteries at that cost exist, B) Is that actually cost efficient enough, and C) Can we produce enough of them to deal with the scale of batteries needed. Your post didn’t really argue against any of those points, just stated vacuously that current setups aren’t sufficient. Obviously current setups aren’t sufficient, the question is if we are approaching the cost point where they could be.
  - N1H1L 5y ago
    Used car batteries are much, much cheaper. So as more BEVs come on road, that's obviously one way forward. Also $100/kWh is today. However, given how rapidly costs have declined over the past three decades, nothing suggests that this is the final number. Finally, these are just Li-ion prices. Na-ion and Fe-ion are also very close to deployment now. Both of them cannot match the energy density of Li-ion, but that's fine. Grid storage depends on cost, not energy density anyway
  - eldaisfish 5y ago
    Storage batteries are going to fill gaps in generation swings, not power gigawatt scale grids for more than a few minutes. This is the crux of my point and i stated it as such. A lot of smaller batteries is effectively equivalent to a single larger battery and that does not get around the problem from above - they simply cannot store enough energy for more than short periods. A handful of large hydro reservoirs store more potential energy than all chemical batteries in the world combined. Meanwhile, extreme weather events are getting more common. Texas - for example - had a nearly 10,000 MW shortfall between their forecast and the actual, served demand. Is a battery every going to supply capacities like that for hours on end? No. During that cold snap, some wind turbines froze, some didn't see enough wind and much of the solar wasn't generating at full tilt. What then? Do we shrug our shoulders and say "no heat, too bad"? Chemical storage batteries cannot power large grids for extended periods and that is the fundamental problem being ignored, not their cost. The problem with HN is that people do not think outside their silicon valley and techbro bubble. Another comment here suggested that domestic loads can be served with a battery. Sure, if you live in California and don't need much heat. This is the problem - when someone points out that what is proposed is not viable everywhere and that a mix of solutions is needed, it gets downvoted because it doesn't follow the "renewable energy is the be all and end all" argument.
    - N1H1L 5y ago
      Define short periods. Also gas lines froze more than turbines did BTW at Texas, just FYI. Very few conventional sources can also backstop 10GW of demand mismatch. Which is why having a national grid is so much better, power from Arizona can be used to top up shortfalls in Texas and vice versa. > Chemical storage batteries cannot power large grids for extended periods and that is the fundamental problem being ignored, not their cost. You are being downvoted because this is just an opinion, not backed by any facts on the ground. Most solar installs today itself come with 4 hours of battery backup. Also, several posters and I have given cost figures on how much multi-day battery backups would cost even at current prices. So your insistence that batteries only last for a few minutes is getting downvoted, and calling people techbros isn't helping either.
- onethought 5y ago
  I think there are two tracts to this discussion: industrial and residential energy. Solar + Storage 100% can replace residential power usage. Ask anyone with a home battery and solar. Density is obviously a factor, but seems straight forward to solve. Industrial energy usage, I think it’s seperate, but also is very moveable. Ie we can change how industry works to surge production at peak solar and wind, and then reduce when that power is not available. Plus battery storage still works here (Not just lithium either, hydro, thermal, compressed a air, gravity store). Where exactly do you see “unpredictable” energy problems that storage or shifting doesn’t solve?
- N1H1L 5y ago
  Why not? It's a matter of cost ultimately. A gigawatt-hour of battery storage is US$100 million.
- Jedd 5y ago
  > The problem with battery energy storage is not cost but scale. I'd posit that it's mostly cost, otherwise it would be a solved problem now. Certainly we can scale - even if it means putting low-cost batteries behind the meter (that solves, for a very modest sum, 90% of power consumers' problems). That's a horizontal scaling, obviously. For the consumer types that need a lot of energy, then we need to come up with more imaginative solutions for their requirements. These types of turbines are almost definitely part of that. Aside - complaining about downvotes is bad form. My feeling is your myriad comments on this article exhibit vehemence, and imply everyone else is ill-informed. It's possible we all have something to learn.
  - eldaisfish 5y ago
    People here are indeed ill-informed. Silicon valley has a recent obsession with battery tech and seems to believe that batteries can scale like software. Spoiler - this is not the case. As i said originally, the technical problem is scale. Even if cost does fall, no battery can power a gigawatt scale grid for more than a few minutes. Yes - minutes. During an extreme weather event, what will happen? There is a lot to learn but the solution - and this the part that people don't like hearing - is a mix of technologies. Batteries are a thin slice of the solution. We need more hydro generation, more nuclear, more wind and more solar PV. It is not a binary choice as many here seem to believe.
    - N1H1L 5y ago
      Overbuilding solar and wind have been long suggested. But your insistence that batteries will only provide power for a few minutes is honestly not backed up by any data.
    - adventured 5y ago
      > the solution ... is a mix of technologies Certainly. > Even if cost does fall, no battery can power a gigawatt scale grid for more than a few minutes. Yes - minutes. During an extreme weather event, what will happen? In an emergency the primary focus isn't, for example, on powering offices, powering every single thing you can. The focus should be on powering homes for a relatively short duration at reduced consumption. The goal is survival, not keeping everything on the grid powered up 24/7. Two Powerwalls can power a home for two to three days at reduced energy consumption (rationing). There's no reason we can't get to that type of outcome as routine in the next 10-20 years, given the cost of homes today (nearing $400,000 median sale price) and the continual decline in battery costs (and that's assuming no great battery breakthroughs). There's no reason all new homes built in the US shouldn't come with the equivalent of at least three Powerwalls of energy storage 20 years out.
Aerroon 5y ago
To put some numbers to this. France produced 537.7 TWh of electricity in 2020. That's 537,700,000,000 kWh. Let's say you want battery capacity that can cover this for one day - divide it by 365 - 1,473,000,000 kWh. At $100 per kWh that would cost $147 billion. That's actually not that outrageous. In reality you would probably want more battery capacity than that, but at the same time you'd probably have other forms of power generation too. Those other forms of power generation probably aren't going to be off when wind power isn't being produced, which means that they don't need to be covered by the battery capacity. France's budget in 2021 was $755 billion. Edit: I forgot about batteries wearing out. If they have to replace the batteries once a year then this would still be prohibitively expensive.
- N1H1L 5y ago
  Batteries easily last a decade now. LFP chemistries easily will do 1000+ cycles. Also 24 hours is a huge amount - you actually don't need more than that, especially if you have offshore wind in your mix, as they blow pretty much all the time.
  - liketochill 5y ago
    1000 cycles / 365 days =~ 3 years, not 10? I heard a solar project is over-provisioning the battery and planning to replace it every 5 years as they must be able to deliver some amount of MWh 4 years down the road.
    - N1H1L 5y ago
      Yes - but you are never really cycling all the way. Draining them down completely and filling them all the way up. Rather they are often smoothing out power supply.
      - liketochill 5y ago
        So a cycle is a full discharge and if you get at least 1000 cycles but never go below 10% discharge you would get 10000 10% discharge/charge cycles from a battery?

by N1H1L 5y ago

eldaisfish 5y ago

>We can get them at $100/kWh now. The problem with battery energy storage is not cost but scale. There isn't a battery in the world that can power a gigawatt scale electric grid for more than a few minutes. The original point is a good one - no renewable generation technology is a replacement for coal/gas/nuclear simply due to the unpredictable and variable nature of renewable generation. Edit - it is very telling that information and views that go against the grain of "renewable energy is the sole future" are instantly downvoted. Shame on you.

NineStarPoint 5y ago
I suspect you’re being downvoted because it isn’t a very well formulated negative. The problem is indeed scale, but there not being a battery setup in the world that could singlehandedly fix the issue isn’t the problem. You can have a lot of smaller battery setups if the batteries are cost efficient enough and you have a suitably flexible grid. The actual issues are the cost efficiency of batteries, the amount of batteries that can be produced in total, and the flexibility of the power grid. Flexibility of the power grid is a known solvable problem, although how much it will cost to improve our infrastructure there is an important question. The point you were responding to was presumably arguing that $100kw/h batteries exist, and that that’s cost efficient enough. The questions are A) Is it true batteries at that cost exist, B) Is that actually cost efficient enough, and C) Can we produce enough of them to deal with the scale of batteries needed. Your post didn’t really argue against any of those points, just stated vacuously that current setups aren’t sufficient. Obviously current setups aren’t sufficient, the question is if we are approaching the cost point where they could be.
- N1H1L 5y ago
  Used car batteries are much, much cheaper. So as more BEVs come on road, that's obviously one way forward. Also $100/kWh is today. However, given how rapidly costs have declined over the past three decades, nothing suggests that this is the final number. Finally, these are just Li-ion prices. Na-ion and Fe-ion are also very close to deployment now. Both of them cannot match the energy density of Li-ion, but that's fine. Grid storage depends on cost, not energy density anyway
- eldaisfish 5y ago
  Storage batteries are going to fill gaps in generation swings, not power gigawatt scale grids for more than a few minutes. This is the crux of my point and i stated it as such. A lot of smaller batteries is effectively equivalent to a single larger battery and that does not get around the problem from above - they simply cannot store enough energy for more than short periods. A handful of large hydro reservoirs store more potential energy than all chemical batteries in the world combined. Meanwhile, extreme weather events are getting more common. Texas - for example - had a nearly 10,000 MW shortfall between their forecast and the actual, served demand. Is a battery every going to supply capacities like that for hours on end? No. During that cold snap, some wind turbines froze, some didn't see enough wind and much of the solar wasn't generating at full tilt. What then? Do we shrug our shoulders and say "no heat, too bad"? Chemical storage batteries cannot power large grids for extended periods and that is the fundamental problem being ignored, not their cost. The problem with HN is that people do not think outside their silicon valley and techbro bubble. Another comment here suggested that domestic loads can be served with a battery. Sure, if you live in California and don't need much heat. This is the problem - when someone points out that what is proposed is not viable everywhere and that a mix of solutions is needed, it gets downvoted because it doesn't follow the "renewable energy is the be all and end all" argument.
  - N1H1L 5y ago
    Define short periods. Also gas lines froze more than turbines did BTW at Texas, just FYI. Very few conventional sources can also backstop 10GW of demand mismatch. Which is why having a national grid is so much better, power from Arizona can be used to top up shortfalls in Texas and vice versa. > Chemical storage batteries cannot power large grids for extended periods and that is the fundamental problem being ignored, not their cost. You are being downvoted because this is just an opinion, not backed by any facts on the ground. Most solar installs today itself come with 4 hours of battery backup. Also, several posters and I have given cost figures on how much multi-day battery backups would cost even at current prices. So your insistence that batteries only last for a few minutes is getting downvoted, and calling people techbros isn't helping either.
onethought 5y ago
I think there are two tracts to this discussion: industrial and residential energy. Solar + Storage 100% can replace residential power usage. Ask anyone with a home battery and solar. Density is obviously a factor, but seems straight forward to solve. Industrial energy usage, I think it’s seperate, but also is very moveable. Ie we can change how industry works to surge production at peak solar and wind, and then reduce when that power is not available. Plus battery storage still works here (Not just lithium either, hydro, thermal, compressed a air, gravity store). Where exactly do you see “unpredictable” energy problems that storage or shifting doesn’t solve?
N1H1L 5y ago
Why not? It's a matter of cost ultimately. A gigawatt-hour of battery storage is US$100 million.
Jedd 5y ago
> The problem with battery energy storage is not cost but scale. I'd posit that it's mostly cost, otherwise it would be a solved problem now. Certainly we can scale - even if it means putting low-cost batteries behind the meter (that solves, for a very modest sum, 90% of power consumers' problems). That's a horizontal scaling, obviously. For the consumer types that need a lot of energy, then we need to come up with more imaginative solutions for their requirements. These types of turbines are almost definitely part of that. Aside - complaining about downvotes is bad form. My feeling is your myriad comments on this article exhibit vehemence, and imply everyone else is ill-informed. It's possible we all have something to learn.
- eldaisfish 5y ago
  People here are indeed ill-informed. Silicon valley has a recent obsession with battery tech and seems to believe that batteries can scale like software. Spoiler - this is not the case. As i said originally, the technical problem is scale. Even if cost does fall, no battery can power a gigawatt scale grid for more than a few minutes. Yes - minutes. During an extreme weather event, what will happen? There is a lot to learn but the solution - and this the part that people don't like hearing - is a mix of technologies. Batteries are a thin slice of the solution. We need more hydro generation, more nuclear, more wind and more solar PV. It is not a binary choice as many here seem to believe.
  - N1H1L 5y ago
    Overbuilding solar and wind have been long suggested. But your insistence that batteries will only provide power for a few minutes is honestly not backed up by any data.
  - adventured 5y ago
    > the solution ... is a mix of technologies Certainly. > Even if cost does fall, no battery can power a gigawatt scale grid for more than a few minutes. Yes - minutes. During an extreme weather event, what will happen? In an emergency the primary focus isn't, for example, on powering offices, powering every single thing you can. The focus should be on powering homes for a relatively short duration at reduced consumption. The goal is survival, not keeping everything on the grid powered up 24/7. Two Powerwalls can power a home for two to three days at reduced energy consumption (rationing). There's no reason we can't get to that type of outcome as routine in the next 10-20 years, given the cost of homes today (nearing $400,000 median sale price) and the continual decline in battery costs (and that's assuming no great battery breakthroughs). There's no reason all new homes built in the US shouldn't come with the equivalent of at least three Powerwalls of energy storage 20 years out.

Aerroon 5y ago

To put some numbers to this. France produced 537.7 TWh of electricity in 2020. That's 537,700,000,000 kWh. Let's say you want battery capacity that can cover this for one day - divide it by 365 - 1,473,000,000 kWh. At $100 per kWh that would cost $147 billion. That's actually not that outrageous. In reality you would probably want more battery capacity than that, but at the same time you'd probably have other forms of power generation too. Those other forms of power generation probably aren't going to be off when wind power isn't being produced, which means that they don't need to be covered by the battery capacity. France's budget in 2021 was $755 billion. Edit: I forgot about batteries wearing out. If they have to replace the batteries once a year then this would still be prohibitively expensive.

N1H1L 5y ago
Batteries easily last a decade now. LFP chemistries easily will do 1000+ cycles. Also 24 hours is a huge amount - you actually don't need more than that, especially if you have offshore wind in your mix, as they blow pretty much all the time.
- liketochill 5y ago
  1000 cycles / 365 days =~ 3 years, not 10? I heard a solar project is over-provisioning the battery and planning to replace it every 5 years as they must be able to deliver some amount of MWh 4 years down the road.
  - N1H1L 5y ago
    Yes - but you are never really cycling all the way. Draining them down completely and filling them all the way up. Rather they are often smoothing out power supply.
    - liketochill 5y ago
      So a cycle is a full discharge and if you get at least 1000 cycles but never go below 10% discharge you would get 10000 10% discharge/charge cycles from a battery?