3 ms·
Do you have some references about cheap storage. I'm keen to learn more about the current state of the art.
by hgomersall 4y ago
Do you have some references about cheap storage. I'm keen to learn more about the current state of the art.
- ncmncm 4y agoThe Wikipedia article on pumped hydro mentions some perhaps surprising variations that do not depend on mountain geography. CAES -- compressed air -- is quite mature. Until recently it was considered to have insufficient round-trip efficiency, but that doesn't matter so much anymore. Again, there are numerous interesting variations, including pumping air into a vessel anchored to the sea floor via a pipe from an onshore compressor, and others where heat of compression is banked and added back when extracting power, for better efficiency. In Chile, a big air liquification system is under construction. In principle this is similar to compressed air storage, but without need for pressure vessels. LN2 can be shipped, and is industrially useful directly. A float can be attached to a cable looped through a pulley at the sea floor, and winched down from on shore. This, like several other undersea systems, would work scaled down to local utility size. There are numerous projects preparing to push hydrogen into underground cavities, in some cases cavities natural gas was recently extracted from. A UK company has a system with a thousands-of-tons weight winched up and down in a disused mineshaft. There are a great many disused mineshafts worldwide. They can often be used to keep compressed air or hydrogen in at the same time. Ammonia may be synthesized electrically, and stored or shipped in liquid form under light pressure. Ammonia is massively useful industrially, so synthesis equipment would be idle only when stocks are being drawn down. Form is building out factories to make iron-air batteries. Ultimately, we will end up using a few that turn out to be cheapest, or otherwise (e.g. ammonia, LN2) valuable. We just don't know which those will be. We do know that Energy Vault, a publicly traded pump-and-dump scheme, will not be among them.
- belorn 4y agoCalling green hydrogen cheap is a bit of a stretch. The Swedish government produced a government report on the viability of it a couple/few years ago and the price was around 10x compared to nuclear, and that just for producing it. Storage and transportation would be additional costs on top. There is a reason why there aren't any current investments Sweden/Finland/Germany in order to create green hydrogen for energy production. (There are project to create green hydrogen in industries that explicitly need the hydrogen itself, in which case the cost calculations is much better). In practice we should simply apply the open market and allow energy companies to bid for direct decommission of existing capacity in fossil fuel energy plants. If a commercial company can produce a combined renewables + storage solution that is cheaper than nuclear then that is a major win-win for everyone involved. If it is a bit more expensive than nuclear than it might still be worth it, but then the question is how much more. The combination that should not be allowed to bid is the combination of renewables + fossil fuels, and if needed, laws should be added to that effect.
- ncmncm 4y agoThere is not need to transport hydrogen when it can be made right on the spot where it is needed. Cost of green hydrogen is in free fall, just like all storage media, as factories ramp up.
- belorn 4y agoIt has a lot of distance to fall before it becomes economical viable.
- ncmncm 4y agoIt pleases you to believe so, but as was the case for solar PV, wind turbines, and batteries before it, literally all hydrogen electrolysis needs now is manufacturing volume.
- belorn 4y agoIf your crystal ball has made you so convinced then put your money where your mouth is. Go out and start producing green hydrogen for power and try compete on the open energy market. 10x more expensive than nuclear is sure to be a winner.