3 ms·

The average cost of green hydrogen is 6 euro per kg, putting the price per kw/h around 18 cent. That is about 7 times more than the cost of nuclear per kw/h. N

• pydry 4y ago
  "Green hydrogen" is probably the least efficient form of energy storage talked about. The only reason it gets talked about at all is again, PR - because gas companies are keen on extending the life of their rather expensive capital investments. It's currently in the hypothetical stage and, being realistic, the gas companies promoting it probably just want to produce grey hydrogen for use with "green hydrogen" infrastructure and string us along with false hopes that theyll go 100% green soon. Not an unexpected development from the same people who covered up global warming for decades. Pumped storage + (to a lesser extent) grid scale batteries (e.g. in hawaii) are actually real, being used and economic. The lobbying and PR muscle behind each is a bit less though - especially boring old pumped storage. >Demand shaping + solar + wind + storage is not economical viable in Northen Europe It very much is. It's already being done. In fact a lot of that storage in the alps has been used for excess nuclear power from France.
  • belorn 4y ago
    Please provide a link to a pumped storage that buy green wind power when the price is low and sell it when the price is high. I would be nice to have a working example of how much wind they buy and at what price point they sell, and how they managed to finance it (ie, how much subsidies was involved). The cost per kw/h is of particular interest. Grid scale batteries work great when you got 365 charge cycles. Each day it charge, each night it sell and generate profits. Current economics makes it worth having a few hours of capacity, and after a few years of daily charge cycles you got profits. Wind doesn't have day and night cycles like that, but rather have periods lasting weeks or months of either good wind or poor wind. You need capacity to last the whole period, and you get maybe a 10 or so charge cycle each year. > A lot of that storage in the alps has been used for excess nuclear power from France. Since nuclear is presented as being the most expensive method to create energy, if you then store it in pumped hydro and add this additional storage cost, how in the world would that be economical viable? Looking at the European report on energy storage, the answer is that it is not. Pumped storage is not used for that purpose in the alps. It is used to balance the grid when power plants ramp up or down, a role which gas and oil power plants usually do. For this, nuclear energy can be used since the profits are not from buying low and selling high, it is from the utilization of keeping the grid balanced when power plants are ramping up and down. They get paid for the service, which makes the economics of it very different from selling capacity to the market during periods of low wind.
    • pydry 4y ago
      >Please provide a link to a pumped storage that buy green wind power when the price is low and sell it when the price is high. Not sure what you mean here. Like, a link to fengning? Kaprun? Snowy 2? Also you dont buy "green power" on the grid. You just buy power. We dont have much pumped storage right now coz (at least until feb) basically nothing could compete with gas as a peaker. Some is under construction though in anticipation of it being economic in a few years. With the subsidies nuclear eats for breakfast we could accelerate and bring online even more stable power than nuclear possibly could at lower cost. >Wind doesn't have day and night cycles like that, but rather have periods lasting weeks or months of either good wind or poor wind. It tends to anticorrelate with solar production which has a smoothing effect. Also the idea that whole months go by with little to no wind is a myth. Offshore in particular is a lot more stable than its reputation, topping out at 67% capacity factor, which is only slightly below France's 71% for its nuclear plants in 2020 (frances plants are getting decrepit). Pro nuclear articles almost invariably avoid delving into this and comparing the economics and focus almost exclusively on safety because this isnt an argument it can really win. >Since nuclear is presented as being the most expensive method to create energy, if you then store it in pumped hydro and add this additional storage cost, how in the world would that be economical viable? Coz France subsidized the shit out of its nuclear industry in the 70s in reaction to the oil crisis. You can make anything economic if you throw subsidies at it. Whether those subsidies were well spent is another matter. If you assume construction is a sunk cost, existing nuclear plants are economically competitive which is partly why new US nuclear legislation is focused on extending plant life. However, running decrepit old nuclear plants until the bitter end isnt particularly safe. Hence why it's important to prime the public to think that it is with all those "nuclear power is the future!" articles. Consent must be manufactured.
      • belorn 4y ago
        > Not sure what you mean here. Like, a link to fengning? Kaprun? Snowy 2? Provide a source that shows a company which business model is to buy renewable energy when the price is low and then sells it when the price is high, recovering the cost of investment and operations by the margin between the low and high price point. Shouldn't be hard. I can provide a link of a company which business model is to buy groceries at a cheap price and then sell them to customers at a higher price. Buy low sell high is one of the most simplistic business model that exist. What does not count is a pumped storage that operate as a grid balancer, where the profits is not from the margins between price points but rather to provide a service of keeping the grid balanced when other power plants are ramping down or ramping up. They don't get paid per kw/h, and they don't sell just when the price is high. > Also the idea that whole months go by with little to no wind is a myth There is statistics about this if one do a few searches. The risk that you get a whole month with little to no wind is a statistical probability higher than 0. More commonly there are periods of low wind lasting weeks to months, with individual day that have slightly more or slightly less. Just as there can be unusual stormy weather a few months, there can be months with unusual calm weather.