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Flow batter, Glass batteries, seems like everyday there is a new battery. The real question: Can these batteries operate at Grid Scale. What happens with Tokyo

by safsgf 4y ago

Flow batter, Glass batteries, seems like everyday there is a new battery. The real question: Can these batteries operate at Grid Scale. What happens with Tokyo has a disaster event or any other mega city for that matter (where 70% of the population will live decades from now). Today 96% of storage is water being pumped up a hill...

tim333 4y ago
Vanadium redox flow batteries aren't that new - the first successful ones were made in the 80s - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery I hope they get the economics to work. Also the longest duration flow battery in the Wikipedia article runs 10 hours. We really need something that can charge for months in the summer and discarge for months in the winter. Maybe rust https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27944600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27944600 or aluminium https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26463249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26463249 ?
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Long-term storage does not have a future. Most localities will store no more than two weeks' production. If local banked energy looks likely to get used up, and incoming transmission line power cannot be secured, they order a shipment of synthetic fuel (ammonia) from a solar farm in the tropics, or from a wind farm somewhere else. (Until those come online and undercut NG, they will burn NG.) Expect most places that do buy batteries to buy no more than 4 hours' worth. Other media will be cheaper, beyond that. If they need to keep the old combined-cycle turbines ready to spin up anyway, they are likely to favor banking a couple of weeks' fuel for those. They might install fuel synthesizers, but probably most will sell excess to the grid, which will absorb any amount, at the right price.
ncmncm 4y ago
Any chemistry still being considered can operate at your "grid scale". If you need more storage, you buy more battery. Pumped hydro dominates mainly because the dams and turbines were already there. So "can it operate at grid scale?" is a bullshit question. All storage alternatives can operate at grid scale by adding more units. What matters is cost, and costs are changing. Even Energy Vault's fraudulent hi-rise condo for concrete blocks could scale up, in principle. It would just be stupidly expensive, and its cost cannot come down noticeably, so they won't sell any condos. People holding NRGV shares will lose badly, and people with call options on it, much worse. You might make a lot of money betting it will collapse, but they could in the meantime swap equity for something that works, and then not ruin that. Unlikely, though: who would be smart enough to have something that works, but dumb enough to swap? Some technologies and battery chemistries will win big, reliably. We just don't know which ones.

by safsgf 4y ago

tim333 4y ago

Vanadium redox flow batteries aren't that new - the first successful ones were made in the 80s - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery I hope they get the economics to work. Also the longest duration flow battery in the Wikipedia article runs 10 hours. We really need something that can charge for months in the summer and discarge for months in the winter. Maybe rust https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27944600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27944600 or aluminium https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26463249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26463249 ?

ncmncm 4y ago
Long-term storage does not have a future. Most localities will store no more than two weeks' production. If local banked energy looks likely to get used up, and incoming transmission line power cannot be secured, they order a shipment of synthetic fuel (ammonia) from a solar farm in the tropics, or from a wind farm somewhere else. (Until those come online and undercut NG, they will burn NG.) Expect most places that do buy batteries to buy no more than 4 hours' worth. Other media will be cheaper, beyond that. If they need to keep the old combined-cycle turbines ready to spin up anyway, they are likely to favor banking a couple of weeks' fuel for those. They might install fuel synthesizers, but probably most will sell excess to the grid, which will absorb any amount, at the right price.

ncmncm 4y ago

Any chemistry still being considered can operate at your "grid scale". If you need more storage, you buy more battery. Pumped hydro dominates mainly because the dams and turbines were already there. So "can it operate at grid scale?" is a bullshit question. All storage alternatives can operate at grid scale by adding more units. What matters is cost, and costs are changing. Even Energy Vault's fraudulent hi-rise condo for concrete blocks could scale up, in principle. It would just be stupidly expensive, and its cost cannot come down noticeably, so they won't sell any condos. People holding NRGV shares will lose badly, and people with call options on it, much worse. You might make a lot of money betting it will collapse, but they could in the meantime swap equity for something that works, and then not ruin that. Unlikely, though: who would be smart enough to have something that works, but dumb enough to swap? Some technologies and battery chemistries will win big, reliably. We just don't know which ones.