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Sorry to be a killjoy, but $6/kwh is at least 20x too expensive. In 2021, the average price of electricity in the US was 14 cents/kwh. Assuming you charge with

Sorry to be a killjoy, but $6/kwh is at least 20x too expensive. In 2021, the average price of electricity in the US was 14 cents/kwh. Assuming you charge with free electricity, your charge-discharge efficiency is 100%, there is no capacity loss over the years, and your cost of capital is zero, you need more than 40 years to break even at that price. All the 4 assumptions above and a few others (zero installation and maintenance cost, zero insurance, zero cost of disposal) are super unrealistic.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago
"Exploring the use of Iron" "Limited by Nickel" "Limited by Nickel": This is just lithium ion battery storage, it is plainly obvious. "Exploring the use of Iron": using LFP (which will be 200-230 wh/kg in production later this year) "Added some sulphur": great, but you're wayyyy behind the current state of the art research in Li-S. That cost is appropriate for maybe a day or two of storage. Months between seasons? That's ridiculous, even if we had a dirt-cheap 200 wh/kg sodium ion battery which COULD probably hit 6$/kg, unlike their unnamed/unspecified techs they are "looking into". Likely it is since every other battery buzzword was notched in this article. The use case, providing more energy in the summer, is covered with solar + couple day grid storage and existing nuclear or gas turbine for load leveling. What we need is to install as much wind and solar as possible to immediately eliminate coal, then add storage and more wind/solar as needed to start eating away at gas turbine. Nuclear should stick around for long-term load levelling until batteries become dirt dirt dirt cheap. This article is so poorly written that it might as well be unintentional FUD.
mechagodzilla 5y ago
I think you misunderstood the article - they're talking about the capacity of the battery in terms of kilowatt-hours, not its cost relative to round-trip efficiency. If the cost were $6/kwh, you could build a 100kwh battery for $600, and charge/discharge that many times. I think this is supposed to be interesting both for its relatively cheap materials (and useful level of energy density), and its ability to be 'frozen' in a room-temperature charged state for long periods of time without much loss of charge.
- credit_guy 5y ago
  Seasonal storage means you charge in the summer and discharge in the winter. One cycle per year. You need 40 years to sell electricity 40 times.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago

"Exploring the use of Iron" "Limited by Nickel" "Limited by Nickel": This is just lithium ion battery storage, it is plainly obvious. "Exploring the use of Iron": using LFP (which will be 200-230 wh/kg in production later this year) "Added some sulphur": great, but you're wayyyy behind the current state of the art research in Li-S. That cost is appropriate for maybe a day or two of storage. Months between seasons? That's ridiculous, even if we had a dirt-cheap 200 wh/kg sodium ion battery which COULD probably hit 6$/kg, unlike their unnamed/unspecified techs they are "looking into". Likely it is since every other battery buzzword was notched in this article. The use case, providing more energy in the summer, is covered with solar + couple day grid storage and existing nuclear or gas turbine for load leveling. What we need is to install as much wind and solar as possible to immediately eliminate coal, then add storage and more wind/solar as needed to start eating away at gas turbine. Nuclear should stick around for long-term load levelling until batteries become dirt dirt dirt cheap. This article is so poorly written that it might as well be unintentional FUD.

mechagodzilla 5y ago

I think you misunderstood the article - they're talking about the capacity of the battery in terms of kilowatt-hours, not its cost relative to round-trip efficiency. If the cost were $6/kwh, you could build a 100kwh battery for $600, and charge/discharge that many times. I think this is supposed to be interesting both for its relatively cheap materials (and useful level of energy density), and its ability to be 'frozen' in a room-temperature charged state for long periods of time without much loss of charge.

credit_guy 5y ago
Seasonal storage means you charge in the summer and discharge in the winter. One cycle per year. You need 40 years to sell electricity 40 times.