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There are proven, scalable technologies for storing large amounts of energy. For overnight storage you can melt salt. For seasonal storage you can make Methane
by adrianN 5y ago
There are proven, scalable technologies for storing large amounts of energy. For overnight storage you can melt salt. For seasonal storage you can make Methane (or Hydrogen). Every country has strategic gas storage infrastructure already built. Batteries are only interesting because they might become cheaper than these.
Currently we don't store large amounts of energy because it's cheaper not to, not because it's impossible to build the necessary infrastructure.
- pydry 5y agoIt is now cheap to store using batteries. It just hasnt been that way for very long.
- adrianN 5y agoThat depends on the scale I think. It's getting close to economical for private electricity use, but we're still pretty far away from the manufacturing capabilities that would allow us to store a week of power for the whole grid. And even further away if you also include energy that is currently not supplied as electricity (e.g. for heating).
- pydry 5y agoIt's economical to combine it with solar/wind on the grid. Both California and Hawaii are doing this right now. This form of energy is about 1/3 the cost per MWh of nuclear (as opposed to solar/wind alone which is about 1/6th the cost). It just hasnt been that cheap for very long. Hydro as storage, better grid interconnects, demand shaping (e.g. using smart storage heaters that turn on when electricity is cheap) can bring down the cost still further.