3 ms·

Yes, but bulk of the demand is heat and industry, so you're quickly back to having to build a lot of "storage" in the form of buildings with high thermal inerti

Yes, but bulk of the demand is heat and industry, so you're quickly back to having to build a lot of "storage" in the form of buildings with high thermal inertia and spare capacity for production, so that you can keep the high energy plants idle at inconvenient times. Hard to say if that is more efficient than building actual energy storage. Every little helps I guess, but getting people not to shower on cloudy days is not gonna move the needle materially.

Qwertious 5y ago
Heat is fairly trivially stored for months on a mass scale, check out Polar-night Energy's system - basically, you heat up (usually with just resistive heating) a bunch of sand in a 40metre-wide insulated cylinder, and when you want to use that heat you use fans to blow air through ducts that are surrounded by the sand. The amazing thing is that every single part of the tech is old and boring - resistive heating is literally as old as electricity, electric fans and ducting are trivial, heating sand is basically impossible to screw up, etc etc.
- pfdietz 5y ago
  Sand can be used as a surprisingly effect store for electrical energy (round trip efficiency > 50%). https://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2021-03/07%20Day1-Zhiwen%20Ma_NREL.pdf https://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2021-03/07%20D... I am particularly taken by the fluidized bed heat exchanger. What an neat concept, and so compact.
learc83 5y ago
You could just implement enough surge pricing that people/companies work around peak times on their own and build their own storage.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  Industry often works around the clock already. You don't want to buy and install three times the equipment you need, and have it sit idle 16 hours of the day. You also don't want to shut down for winter just because the electricity is less abundant then.
  - learc83 5y ago
    Someone needs to pay for the storage and additional generation—both the direct costs and the externalities. Why not let the market figure out who pays for it? If factories can’t afford to pay those prices, they’ll have to rework their business model, or maybe relocate to areas with cheaper power.

Qwertious 5y ago

Heat is fairly trivially stored for months on a mass scale, check out Polar-night Energy's system - basically, you heat up (usually with just resistive heating) a bunch of sand in a 40metre-wide insulated cylinder, and when you want to use that heat you use fans to blow air through ducts that are surrounded by the sand. The amazing thing is that every single part of the tech is old and boring - resistive heating is literally as old as electricity, electric fans and ducting are trivial, heating sand is basically impossible to screw up, etc etc.

pfdietz 5y ago
Sand can be used as a surprisingly effect store for electrical energy (round trip efficiency > 50%). https://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2021-03/07%20Day1-Zhiwen%20Ma_NREL.pdf https://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2021-03/07%20D... I am particularly taken by the fluidized bed heat exchanger. What an neat concept, and so compact.

learc83 5y ago

You could just implement enough surge pricing that people/companies work around peak times on their own and build their own storage.

xyzzyz 5y ago
Industry often works around the clock already. You don't want to buy and install three times the equipment you need, and have it sit idle 16 hours of the day. You also don't want to shut down for winter just because the electricity is less abundant then.
- learc83 5y ago
  Someone needs to pay for the storage and additional generation—both the direct costs and the externalities. Why not let the market figure out who pays for it? If factories can’t afford to pay those prices, they’ll have to rework their business model, or maybe relocate to areas with cheaper power.