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“Hydro has been superceded by battery storage and Green Hydrogen production, for economic reasons.” I’d be really, really be interested in primary sources for

“Hydro has been superceded by battery storage and Green Hydrogen production, for economic reasons.” I’d be really, really be interested in primary sources for the above claim.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
It's mostly just costs. See Figure 1.2 Global weighted average LCOEs from newly commissioned, utility-scale renewable power generation technologies, 2010-2021 https://irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2022/Jul/IRENA_Renewable_Power_Generation_Costs_2021.pdf https://irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/202... Hydro costs are going up, solar and wind going down. Hydro is still less than fossil fuels, which is great, but that's not the target to beat anymore, and renewables are lower and trending even lower. And that's before the more extreme geographical constraints for siting, with good locations already used, the project sizes and the longer lead times and investment paybacks compared with renewables. But Hydro also has flexibility, which is really useful for balancing renewables and nuclear. It's important to switch existing Hydro into this mode to make the most of it. But again, for new build, since the raw power is more expensive than renewables, the flexibility would need to be cheaper than the equivalent flexibility provided by more renewables plus batteries to win back that lost ground. And it isn't. Same story for pumped storage. Here's a worked example for the Snowy 2 project: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/snowy-2-vs-battery-storage/ https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/snowy-2-vs-battery-stora... The key thing is, energy production is cheap these days. So storing energy has to compete against just building even more production and a small amount of storage. This applies to batteries as much as it does to hydro. But batteries scale down better.
- ftth_finland 4y ago
  The links provided are neither primary sources nor do they support your original statement. ”The key thing is, energy production is cheap these days.” This is immaterial if cheap energy is unavailable when needed. See: winter (season) “So storing energy has to compete against just building even more production and a small amount of storage.” This is incorrect. More production is useless if the output is zero. Zero times a large number is still zero. Again, see: winter (season) ”This applies to batteries as much as it does to hydro. But batteries scale down better.” The problem with batteries is that they don’t scale up.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    Batteries do scale up, it's just not as cost effective as scaling out and distributing them. EVs effectively provide grid storage for free (or negative price) which is hard to beat.
    - ftth_finland 4y ago
      Batteries have a hard scaling limit, i.e. global battery production. Using EVs as batteries is neither free nor always available.

“Hydro has been superceded by battery storage and Green Hydrogen production, for economic reasons.” I’d be really, really be interested in primary sources for the above claim.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

It's mostly just costs. See Figure 1.2 Global weighted average LCOEs from newly commissioned, utility-scale renewable power generation technologies, 2010-2021 https://irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2022/Jul/IRENA_Renewable_Power_Generation_Costs_2021.pdf https://irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/202... Hydro costs are going up, solar and wind going down. Hydro is still less than fossil fuels, which is great, but that's not the target to beat anymore, and renewables are lower and trending even lower. And that's before the more extreme geographical constraints for siting, with good locations already used, the project sizes and the longer lead times and investment paybacks compared with renewables. But Hydro also has flexibility, which is really useful for balancing renewables and nuclear. It's important to switch existing Hydro into this mode to make the most of it. But again, for new build, since the raw power is more expensive than renewables, the flexibility would need to be cheaper than the equivalent flexibility provided by more renewables plus batteries to win back that lost ground. And it isn't. Same story for pumped storage. Here's a worked example for the Snowy 2 project: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/snowy-2-vs-battery-storage/ https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/snowy-2-vs-battery-stora... The key thing is, energy production is cheap these days. So storing energy has to compete against just building even more production and a small amount of storage. This applies to batteries as much as it does to hydro. But batteries scale down better.

ftth_finland 4y ago
The links provided are neither primary sources nor do they support your original statement. ”The key thing is, energy production is cheap these days.” This is immaterial if cheap energy is unavailable when needed. See: winter (season) “So storing energy has to compete against just building even more production and a small amount of storage.” This is incorrect. More production is useless if the output is zero. Zero times a large number is still zero. Again, see: winter (season) ”This applies to batteries as much as it does to hydro. But batteries scale down better.” The problem with batteries is that they don’t scale up.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Batteries do scale up, it's just not as cost effective as scaling out and distributing them. EVs effectively provide grid storage for free (or negative price) which is hard to beat.
  - ftth_finland 4y ago
    Batteries have a hard scaling limit, i.e. global battery production. Using EVs as batteries is neither free nor always available.