3 ms·

No such type of idea will ever work. Because by definition, any long term storage solution will be able to sell energy and make a profit only a few number of t

No such type of idea will ever work. Because by definition, any long term storage solution will be able to sell energy and make a profit only a few number of times, and won't be able to recoup its CAPEX expenditure. Let's say that by long term you mean 6 months (the typical period envisioned, i.e. you charge during the Summer months, and sell during the Winter months). Then you'll be able to sell energy once a year. If your system has a lifetime of 20 years, then you need the CAPEX to be only 20 times higher than the annual profit. Let's further say you charge during Summer at zero cost, and sell during Winter at 40 cents/kWh (this is about 3 times the average cost of electricity in the US for 2021). Then the cost of this system should not be more than $8/kWh. For comparison the cost of a Tesla Powerpack is about $700 /kWh [1]. So for any system to have any hope to be "long term storage solution" it needs to be 100 times cheaper than the Tesla Powerpack. In reality it needs to be about 1000 times cheaper, due to numerous other factors: less than 100% round-trip efficiency, the high cost of financing (driven by the significant risk of the project, which is driven by the huge uncertainty regarding future potential competing technologies, such as Hydrogen), operating and insurance costs, etc. There is a way to solve the long term storage system. You need to solve the apparent paradox that if your system is designed to be long term, then you can't buy and sell very frequently. Here's how you solve it: you buy and sell in different markets. You buy (solar) electricity in Morocco pretty much all year long, convert it to Hydrogen, or some other form of chemical storage (ammonia, hydrogen peroxide, methanol, synfuel), and ship that to Germany, where it is converted to electricity, again all year long. This way, you buy every single day and sell every single day. You are able to recoup your CAPEX costs, and make a handsome profit. There are no other ways to solve the long term storage problem. The EU knows that, and this is why it is betting so heavily on Hydrogen. [1] https://electrek.co/2020/03/31/tesla-powerpack-price-commercial-solar/ https://electrek.co/2020/03/31/tesla-powerpack-price-commerc...

ncmncm 4y ago
Storage beyond a week or two will not be needed, most places. But storage for between four hours' peak usage and there needs to be cheaper than batteries. That is where schemes like this will compete. A pure storage play using does not need to be viable. Utilities will integrate generating capacity and storage to deliver on service level agreements. But synthetic hydrogen and ammonia shipped around will be a huge market, not least because they are massively useful for other than for banking energy.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  > Storage beyond a week or two will not be needed, most places. Here's [1] the solar electricity production by month in Germany. It's about 6 times higher in the Summer compared to Winter. The situation is the same everywhere on the planet at similar latitudes. It's worse at higher latitudes. Unfortunately, a lot of the world's population lives exactly at those latitudes. You could say that you supplement with wind, since wind does not have the same seasonality problem. But then why build solar at all? If you build solar, then you will have a winter deficit, and you will need a Summer to Winter storage solution. [1] https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/monthly-generation-of-solar-pv-in-germany https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/monthly-gener...
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    You will not need a lot of local storage because if your local storage looks likely to get low, you will order a shipment of that same ammonia or hydrogen just discussed. You install lots of solar because it is cheap and still getting cheaper faster than wind is. When you have an excess, you synthesize ammonia and hydrogen for sale. Other people will be doing that, too, but there will be insatiable demand for both. In particular, fertilizer is demanded mainly in warmer months, and farm equipment need their fuel then. When tankage is full and generating capacity exceeds your fuel synthesis capacity, you might use the excess to capture and sequester atmospheric carbon. If you have geology compatible with underground storage, you can put any excess hydrogen synthesized down there to draw upon later. Extracting that is just like extracting NG. Some places, it will be where NG used to be got from, for uses where you don't mind some mixed in. Anyone who does not want to install solar and/or wind may import all their ammonia and hydrogen, from the tropics when not from local producers.
    - credit_guy 4y ago
      If you have a solution that includes battery for daily storage and hydrogen for long term, it's not clear where you can fit intermediate term storage. That intermediate term storage will need to be more economical than just increasing a bit the hydrogen capacity. Right now we smooth the peaks using "peaker plants", i.e. turbine engines that burn natural gas. Those can be converted to burn hydrogen. You then need the intermediate term storage to be cheaper than the cost of storing some extra hydrogen, but that seems to be extremely unlikely.

ncmncm 4y ago

Storage beyond a week or two will not be needed, most places. But storage for between four hours' peak usage and there needs to be cheaper than batteries. That is where schemes like this will compete. A pure storage play using does not need to be viable. Utilities will integrate generating capacity and storage to deliver on service level agreements. But synthetic hydrogen and ammonia shipped around will be a huge market, not least because they are massively useful for other than for banking energy.

credit_guy 4y ago
> Storage beyond a week or two will not be needed, most places. Here's [1] the solar electricity production by month in Germany. It's about 6 times higher in the Summer compared to Winter. The situation is the same everywhere on the planet at similar latitudes. It's worse at higher latitudes. Unfortunately, a lot of the world's population lives exactly at those latitudes. You could say that you supplement with wind, since wind does not have the same seasonality problem. But then why build solar at all? If you build solar, then you will have a winter deficit, and you will need a Summer to Winter storage solution. [1] https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/monthly-generation-of-solar-pv-in-germany https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/monthly-gener...
- ncmncm 4y ago
  You will not need a lot of local storage because if your local storage looks likely to get low, you will order a shipment of that same ammonia or hydrogen just discussed. You install lots of solar because it is cheap and still getting cheaper faster than wind is. When you have an excess, you synthesize ammonia and hydrogen for sale. Other people will be doing that, too, but there will be insatiable demand for both. In particular, fertilizer is demanded mainly in warmer months, and farm equipment need their fuel then. When tankage is full and generating capacity exceeds your fuel synthesis capacity, you might use the excess to capture and sequester atmospheric carbon. If you have geology compatible with underground storage, you can put any excess hydrogen synthesized down there to draw upon later. Extracting that is just like extracting NG. Some places, it will be where NG used to be got from, for uses where you don't mind some mixed in. Anyone who does not want to install solar and/or wind may import all their ammonia and hydrogen, from the tropics when not from local producers.
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    If you have a solution that includes battery for daily storage and hydrogen for long term, it's not clear where you can fit intermediate term storage. That intermediate term storage will need to be more economical than just increasing a bit the hydrogen capacity. Right now we smooth the peaks using "peaker plants", i.e. turbine engines that burn natural gas. Those can be converted to burn hydrogen. You then need the intermediate term storage to be cheaper than the cost of storing some extra hydrogen, but that seems to be extremely unlikely.