3 ms·

No, the problem is that the one that wins the competition is still not viable at grid scale. The competition isn't against other storage systems, the competitio

No, the problem is that the one that wins the competition is still not viable at grid scale. The competition isn't against other storage systems, the competition is against energy systems that don't require storage. Nuclear was build at around $1-2 billion per GW when it was built at scale during the 1960s and 70s. It's hard for any renewable + storage system to compete against that.

pfdietz 4y ago
I've explained over and over again to you that you're wrong. Studies such as this one (and others) confirm what I say. I have wonder why, in the face of repeated explanation, you are so resistant to understanding.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  Because your "explanations" are incorrect. You just assume storage systems will become multiple orders of magnitude cheaper than they are today, and offer no reason to justify this assumption. In fact, read what TFA actually says about storage; > Key pillars of this new energy system are solar and wind energy, energy storage, sector coupling, and electrification of all energy and industry sectors implying power-to-X and hydrogen-to-X solutions, complemented by upcoming carbon dioxide removal. I chuckled when I read "Power-to-X". It's a pretty funny way of saying "we no idea how to deliver storage at this scale".
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    No, I do not assume storage systems become multiple orders of magnitude cheaper than they are today. Even the storage systems available at today's price points would allow renewables to be leveled at a price that could be afforded. Rather modest reductions in cost would be preferable, of course, and we can expect those to occur. Power-to-X is using technologies that are mostly off the shelf. The particularly important one that wasn't, low cost electrolyzers, has seen tremendous progress. The Chinese are now selling these for < $300/kW, a fraction of the price assumed in the 2030 assumptions in that modeling site I like to point to.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      Except storage systems today don't scale and become more expensive when deployed at anything close to grid scale. Google told me that lithium ion batteries are $130-150 per KWh. But it turns out when you try to buy loads of them they become scarce and the price goes up. New York ended up paying over $500 for it's storage: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/new-york-battery-storage-costs-rise-interconnection-queue-12-gw/621954/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/new-york-battery-storage-co... Keep stanning "Power-to-X" solutions. But until you actually have a solution for X that works at grid scale, there's no real solution. Just empty promises. You edited your post after I replied: > Power-to-X is using technologies that are mostly off the shelf. The particularly important one that wasn't, low cost electrolyzers, has seen tremendous progress. The Chinese are now selling these for < $300/kW, a fraction of the price assumed in the 2030 assumptions in that modeling site I like to point to. Except none of those systems scale. If they did, the article would have actually specified the storage system. But then they'd have to stand up to scrutiny over whether that storage system can actually deliver at the promised scale. Because it can't, they use ambiguous language like "power to X".
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        You are repeating the same tired bullshit here. When supply is constrained, greatly increased demand can drive up prices. That doesn't mean storage doesn't scale, it just means we haven't built enough factories yet. I'm sure you can remember many episodes in computing where the price of something (DRAMs, GPUs, whatever) temporarily went up because of supply constraints. It would have been deeply foolish to proclaim this mean price declines were over. A similar thing happened with PV back around 2009 or so. The long term decline trend appeared to stall, because of poly-Si shortages. Dishonest skeptics claimed PV cost declines were over. What happened then? The prices provided incentive for more manufacturing capacity to be added, and the decline tracked back to the long term downward trend line.
        Manuel_D 4y ago
        Not just factories, also the mines that are needed to feed input materials to those factories: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/batteries/chart-lithium-prices-are-through-the-roof-this-year https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/batteries/chart-lithium... You know what we call it when factories and raw materials can't keep up with the demand and lead to skyrocketing costs? A system that doesn't scale. DRAM and GPUs aren't bottlenecked by raw materials the way energy storage is. It was a shortage of electrical components, not a shortage of copper. It is a very wrong assumption to think that resource extractions behaves like semiconductor manufacturing.

pfdietz 4y ago

I've explained over and over again to you that you're wrong. Studies such as this one (and others) confirm what I say. I have wonder why, in the face of repeated explanation, you are so resistant to understanding.

Manuel_D 4y ago
Because your "explanations" are incorrect. You just assume storage systems will become multiple orders of magnitude cheaper than they are today, and offer no reason to justify this assumption. In fact, read what TFA actually says about storage; > Key pillars of this new energy system are solar and wind energy, energy storage, sector coupling, and electrification of all energy and industry sectors implying power-to-X and hydrogen-to-X solutions, complemented by upcoming carbon dioxide removal. I chuckled when I read "Power-to-X". It's a pretty funny way of saying "we no idea how to deliver storage at this scale".
- pfdietz 4y ago
  No, I do not assume storage systems become multiple orders of magnitude cheaper than they are today. Even the storage systems available at today's price points would allow renewables to be leveled at a price that could be afforded. Rather modest reductions in cost would be preferable, of course, and we can expect those to occur. Power-to-X is using technologies that are mostly off the shelf. The particularly important one that wasn't, low cost electrolyzers, has seen tremendous progress. The Chinese are now selling these for < $300/kW, a fraction of the price assumed in the 2030 assumptions in that modeling site I like to point to.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    Except storage systems today don't scale and become more expensive when deployed at anything close to grid scale. Google told me that lithium ion batteries are $130-150 per KWh. But it turns out when you try to buy loads of them they become scarce and the price goes up. New York ended up paying over $500 for it's storage: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/new-york-battery-storage-costs-rise-interconnection-queue-12-gw/621954/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/new-york-battery-storage-co... Keep stanning "Power-to-X" solutions. But until you actually have a solution for X that works at grid scale, there's no real solution. Just empty promises. You edited your post after I replied: > Power-to-X is using technologies that are mostly off the shelf. The particularly important one that wasn't, low cost electrolyzers, has seen tremendous progress. The Chinese are now selling these for < $300/kW, a fraction of the price assumed in the 2030 assumptions in that modeling site I like to point to. Except none of those systems scale. If they did, the article would have actually specified the storage system. But then they'd have to stand up to scrutiny over whether that storage system can actually deliver at the promised scale. Because it can't, they use ambiguous language like "power to X".
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      You are repeating the same tired bullshit here. When supply is constrained, greatly increased demand can drive up prices. That doesn't mean storage doesn't scale, it just means we haven't built enough factories yet. I'm sure you can remember many episodes in computing where the price of something (DRAMs, GPUs, whatever) temporarily went up because of supply constraints. It would have been deeply foolish to proclaim this mean price declines were over. A similar thing happened with PV back around 2009 or so. The long term decline trend appeared to stall, because of poly-Si shortages. Dishonest skeptics claimed PV cost declines were over. What happened then? The prices provided incentive for more manufacturing capacity to be added, and the decline tracked back to the long term downward trend line.
      - Manuel_D 4y ago
        Not just factories, also the mines that are needed to feed input materials to those factories: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/batteries/chart-lithium-prices-are-through-the-roof-this-year https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/batteries/chart-lithium... You know what we call it when factories and raw materials can't keep up with the demand and lead to skyrocketing costs? A system that doesn't scale. DRAM and GPUs aren't bottlenecked by raw materials the way energy storage is. It was a shortage of electrical components, not a shortage of copper. It is a very wrong assumption to think that resource extractions behaves like semiconductor manufacturing.