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Let's approximate the cost of that. The energy consumption of my country (the Netherlands) was 3157 PJ in 2017. This was 980 kwh per person per week. Solar batt

by jules 5y ago

Let's approximate the cost of that. The energy consumption of my country (the Netherlands) was 3157 PJ in 2017. This was 980 kwh per person per week. Solar batteries cost a bit more than $1000 per kwh. So at these prices this plan costs approximately $1 million per person. Solar batteries last 5-15 years. If we say that they last 20 years, then the energy storage costs are $130 per person per day per week's worth of storage. This plan sounds feasible if costs come down by factor of 10.

jacquesm 5y ago
How does it compare to the cost of a nuclear power plant? Storing a weeks worth of consumption on a 'per person' basis can be done for a fraction of $1m. But energy scarcity will lead to an increase in prices, which in turn will lead to a reduction in consumption. One big problem with energy is that it is still way too cheap. Another problem is that there are a lot of subsidies involved for large consumers as well as extra taxation on small consumers.
- jules 5y ago
  Generating that amount of energy using nuclear would cost approximately $13.4 per person per day (IIRC ~3x what we're currently paying for it). Note that I have not included the cost to generate the energy in the $130 storage costs, but that cost is negligible compared to the $130 anyway. The environmental damage would probably also be much less with nuclear, versus a ton of solar + wind + batteries. But there would be disaster danger. It is unclear to me how the danger of nuclear disaster would compare to the danger of running out of stored energy in a winter month. > Storing a weeks worth of consumption on a 'per person' basis can be done for a fraction of $1m. How? Since the costs of storage are currently so huge, it seems to me that if you want to go the solar + wind route, it makes sense to overprovision energy generation. That would reduce the amount of storage you need, and the extra energy during summer would be somewhat useful. Note however that you would need massive amounts of wind+solar. For an average household to satisfy its electricity needs, it needs ~10 average size solar panels (assuming perfect storage). However, household electricity use is only 5% of our energy use. So to satisfy energy needs with solar, you need approximately 200 solar panels per household. Even if you round that down to 50 due to reduction in energy consumption and use of wind energy, it's still a lot. But the Netherlands is obviously not a very good country for solar. In countries like Australia, the numbers would look way better.
- nradov 5y ago
  Energy is too expensive, not too cheap. The real problem is that the market is distorted by subsidizing some forms of energy production and failing to price in the negative externalities of others.
jhgb 5y ago
The problem with your reasoning is that no cost-optimal plan of providing the society with energy would call for a week's worth of batteries. Furthermore, another problem is that judging from the number, you're presumably calculating with annual primary energy spent per capita, which will not be the same number after electrification (electrification is expected to massively slash primary energy expended -- for example in cars, where ~20 kWh of electricity replace ~6 liters of gasoline, primary energy shrinks roughly by a factor of three). Therefore translating current primary energy consumption into electricity that will need to be stored in an electrified future is nonsensical.
- jules 5y ago
  A factor of three (which is very optimistic) doesn't change the conclusion: a week's worth of storage is not feasible with current battery technology, let alone a few weeks. How much storage would actually be required is not clear to me. It depends on a lot of factors. A week doesn't sound totally crazy to me; we certainly want a good safety margin so that society doesn't collapse in a bad winter. If we take super optimistic numbers and have one day of storage and take your factor of 3 reduction in energy use, then the cost of storage alone would still be about twice what we currently pay for the energy. Expensive but certainly a cost that would be possible to pay.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    > A factor of three (which is very optimistic) For cars, the factor of three is not "optimistic", it's simple comparison of the respective primary energies consumed by typical vehicles in their respective categories. 20 kWh to drive 100 km = 72 MJ of primary energy. 6 liters of gasoline to drive the same distance = ~220 MJ of primary energy -- roughly triple of the former number. > A week doesn't sound totally crazy to me; we certainly want a good safety margin so that society doesn't collapse in a bad winter. Yes, but that doesn't imply you need the capacity to run the country 100% on batteries for a week. That's just not something anyone would ever do. For example, a gas turbine with a low duty cycle would definitely be cheaper than a battery after a certain period of time. So why would you use a battery for that?
entropy_ 5y ago
Where did you get 1,000$/KWH of storage? Even at small scales (household-sized batteries, ~10~15KWH) prices are currently around 300$/KWH for lithium batteries including shipping in a 3rd world country (I know, because I live in a country where there's no 24/7 grid power and I moved my house to solar+batteries 2 years ago). I'm pretty sure at the kinds of scale you'd need for a country price per KWH would be significantly less.
- jules 5y ago
  I just googled solar battery cost and took the cheapest in the result that came up: https://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/battery-storage-price/ https://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/battery-storage-price/ It is possible that the numbers that come up there are too high.

by jules 5y ago

jacquesm 5y ago

How does it compare to the cost of a nuclear power plant? Storing a weeks worth of consumption on a 'per person' basis can be done for a fraction of $1m. But energy scarcity will lead to an increase in prices, which in turn will lead to a reduction in consumption. One big problem with energy is that it is still way too cheap. Another problem is that there are a lot of subsidies involved for large consumers as well as extra taxation on small consumers.

jules 5y ago
Generating that amount of energy using nuclear would cost approximately $13.4 per person per day (IIRC ~3x what we're currently paying for it). Note that I have not included the cost to generate the energy in the $130 storage costs, but that cost is negligible compared to the $130 anyway. The environmental damage would probably also be much less with nuclear, versus a ton of solar + wind + batteries. But there would be disaster danger. It is unclear to me how the danger of nuclear disaster would compare to the danger of running out of stored energy in a winter month. > Storing a weeks worth of consumption on a 'per person' basis can be done for a fraction of $1m. How? Since the costs of storage are currently so huge, it seems to me that if you want to go the solar + wind route, it makes sense to overprovision energy generation. That would reduce the amount of storage you need, and the extra energy during summer would be somewhat useful. Note however that you would need massive amounts of wind+solar. For an average household to satisfy its electricity needs, it needs ~10 average size solar panels (assuming perfect storage). However, household electricity use is only 5% of our energy use. So to satisfy energy needs with solar, you need approximately 200 solar panels per household. Even if you round that down to 50 due to reduction in energy consumption and use of wind energy, it's still a lot. But the Netherlands is obviously not a very good country for solar. In countries like Australia, the numbers would look way better.
nradov 5y ago
Energy is too expensive, not too cheap. The real problem is that the market is distorted by subsidizing some forms of energy production and failing to price in the negative externalities of others.

jhgb 5y ago

The problem with your reasoning is that no cost-optimal plan of providing the society with energy would call for a week's worth of batteries. Furthermore, another problem is that judging from the number, you're presumably calculating with annual primary energy spent per capita, which will not be the same number after electrification (electrification is expected to massively slash primary energy expended -- for example in cars, where ~20 kWh of electricity replace ~6 liters of gasoline, primary energy shrinks roughly by a factor of three). Therefore translating current primary energy consumption into electricity that will need to be stored in an electrified future is nonsensical.

jules 5y ago
A factor of three (which is very optimistic) doesn't change the conclusion: a week's worth of storage is not feasible with current battery technology, let alone a few weeks. How much storage would actually be required is not clear to me. It depends on a lot of factors. A week doesn't sound totally crazy to me; we certainly want a good safety margin so that society doesn't collapse in a bad winter. If we take super optimistic numbers and have one day of storage and take your factor of 3 reduction in energy use, then the cost of storage alone would still be about twice what we currently pay for the energy. Expensive but certainly a cost that would be possible to pay.
- jhgb 5y ago
  > A factor of three (which is very optimistic) For cars, the factor of three is not "optimistic", it's simple comparison of the respective primary energies consumed by typical vehicles in their respective categories. 20 kWh to drive 100 km = 72 MJ of primary energy. 6 liters of gasoline to drive the same distance = ~220 MJ of primary energy -- roughly triple of the former number. > A week doesn't sound totally crazy to me; we certainly want a good safety margin so that society doesn't collapse in a bad winter. Yes, but that doesn't imply you need the capacity to run the country 100% on batteries for a week. That's just not something anyone would ever do. For example, a gas turbine with a low duty cycle would definitely be cheaper than a battery after a certain period of time. So why would you use a battery for that?

entropy_ 5y ago

Where did you get 1,000$/KWH of storage? Even at small scales (household-sized batteries, ~10~15KWH) prices are currently around 300$/KWH for lithium batteries including shipping in a 3rd world country (I know, because I live in a country where there's no 24/7 grid power and I moved my house to solar+batteries 2 years ago). I'm pretty sure at the kinds of scale you'd need for a country price per KWH would be significantly less.

jules 5y ago
I just googled solar battery cost and took the cheapest in the result that came up: https://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/battery-storage-price/ https://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/battery-storage-price/ It is possible that the numbers that come up there are too high.