9 ms·

This was a little buried, so surfacing some #s that seemed interesting to put this in perspective: - 565 MWh of storage capacity - 185 MW of instantaneous pow

• toomuchtodo 3y ago
  https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline https://www.energy-storage.news/global-bess-deployments-to-exceed-400gw-annually-by-2030-says-rystad-energy/ https://www.energy-storage.news/global-bess-deployments-to-e... Start where electricity is expensive and/or the revenue you steal from thermal generators (grid support mentioned, synthetic inertia, black start capability, etc) supports the economics, and work your way down as battery costs decline and you force thermal generators to become uneconomic due to compressing their runtimes. Think in systems.
  • dgacmu 3y ago
    Yup, absolutely. Places with high energy costs due to being geographically isolated / without a lot of local energy resources have always struck me as some of the best initial places for solar+battery.
    • jnsaff2 3y ago
      Add to that a place that is close enough to the equator that there are no drastic seasonal shifts in PV production.
      • throwaway2037 3y ago
        In the sub/tropics, usually there are only two seasons: wet and dry. During wet season, how much is PV production affected?
        • PNewling 3y ago
          My understanding is rain/clouds don't drastically affect energy production, and sometimes the first rains can work to clear some dirt and debris off.
        • doublespanner 3y ago
          Generally you get less than 1/3 of ideal conditions during rain. Overcast less than 2/3 of ideal.
        • syncsynchalt 3y ago
          In Hawaii, each island has a dry side and a wet side. You can site grid-scale solar on the dry side.
    • mbostleman 3y ago
      I worked on a solar project a number of years back that was one of the first that was actually independently financially sustainable. It was in west Texas in an area that had a highly distributed population and very hot summers. So the existing energy sources were already higher than normal and had the added dimension of spiking demand. Perfect environment for solar to be competitive.
      • brianwawok 3y ago
        Except the politics of texas being pro oil and anti-renewable?
        • philipkglass 3y ago
          Texas is certainly pro-oil but it's also a top state for renewable electricity production. It has the most installed wind power of any state and is number two for solar power, behind only California: https://windexchange.energy.gov/maps-data/321 https://windexchange.energy.gov/maps-data/321 https://www.statista.com/statistics/183531/renewables-in-the-us-leading-states-in-pv-capacity/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/183531/renewables-in-the...
        • epistasis 3y ago
          In most states, with regulated utility monopolies that present a very limited menu of options for regulators to select from, the politics of the utility management and the regulatory board are important drivers on the generation mix. But also profit, and utilities make more profit with higher prices under the regulated monopoly model. In Texas, with an open market for generators, profit is the primary driver of the generation mix. But the difference is electricity generators make more profit with lower cost generation methods, the exact opposite of regulated utilities.
        • petesergeant 3y ago
          > politics of texas being pro oil and anti-renewable Pro-profit is an irresistible force against most other forces
        • ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  • myself248 3y ago
    Can you clarify your usage of "thermal" here? Most everything except photovoltaic is thermal. In the US, we usually name the heat source -- coal, natural gas, nuclear -- even though these are all thermal in operation. And the word 'thermal' does not show up in any of those when we talk about them. The only time the word 'thermal' shows up in US usage is with the 'geo' prefix, and I can't imagine compressing the runtime of a geothermal plant, it's the perfect base-load plant. Are we talking about different things?
    • toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Coal, oil, or fossil gas are traditionally considered thermal generators. Burn, make water hot, make water do work. Examples: https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Aelectricitymaps%2Felectricitymaps-contrib+thermal&type=code https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Aelectricitymaps%2Felectri... https://github.com/electricitymaps/electricitymaps-contrib/blob/2adb83a57d96cbd90849019611b01bc027d3d2df/config/defaults.yaml#L230 https://github.com/electricitymaps/electricitymaps-contrib/b...
    • singhrac 3y ago
      I think you’re being a bit pedantic, actually. I work in power systems in the US (though not an expert) and the term thermal being used to refer to coal, gas and nuclear, with the latter a bit flexible, is very common. For example, it’s very common to say “thermal systems provide inertia”.
      • myself248 3y ago
        In following the Ukraine war, I've come to understand that in certain usage, 'thermal' always implies 'nuclear thermal', almost like a euphemism rather than a useful descriptor that includes other forms of thermal. So I think it's a terrible term in general and it's much more useful to describe the fuel, that's all I was asking for.
        • lokar 3y ago
          I see the word thermal used for coal/gas all the time.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • cplusplusfellow 3y ago
    If only the "systems" we were considering were meant to provide limitless and virtually free electricity (nuclear), which is congruence with the "systems" of reducing poverty.
    • toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Enough sunlight lands on the Earth every 2 minutes to power humanity for a year [1]. ~500-600GW of solar will be deployed in 2024 globally, and we are accelerating to 1TW deployed annually [2]. Commerical nuclear fission is unviable at this point [3], even at nimble startups [4] [5], but proponents are free to argue in support of it to anyone who will still listen. Renewables and batteries have reached an escape velocity trajectory [6]. This global energy system will eliminate energy poverty in our lifetime, and like bankruptcy, it'll happen slowly, and then all of a sudden. [1] https://www.ku.ac.ae/two-minutes-of-sun-enough-to-power-a-year-s-usage-of-humanity-gulf-news https://www.ku.ac.ae/two-minutes-of-sun-enough-to-power-a-ye... [2] https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/12/25/all-i-want-for-christmas-is-one-terawatt-of-solar-deployed-annually/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/12/25/all-i-want-for-christ... [3] https://www.lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-april-2023.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-april... [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38894631 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38894631 [5] https://neutronbytes.com/2023/01/24/nuscales-smr-costs-hit-hard-by-inflation/ https://neutronbytes.com/2023/01/24/nuscales-smr-costs-hit-h... [6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37502924 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37502924
      • IMTDb 3y ago
        > Enough sunlight lands on the Earth every 2 minutes to power humanity for a year [1]. ~500-600GW of solar will be deployed in 2024 globally, and we are accelerating to 1TW deployed annually [2]. Enough sunlights lands on earth every two minutes to power humanity if the whole surface of the planet including ocean was fully covered by 100% efficient solar panels. How is this even remotely relevant when we don't have close to the material needed to achieve that coverage and the efficiency of panels is famously extremely low. The deployment in 2024 is - as usual - expressed in "theoretical max power". Which is nowhere near the actual throughput, and of course orders of magnitude higher than the "when I need it" actually delivery. Again; big numbers don't mean big results; real life scenario matter here, theoretical best is far less relevant. Additionally, quoting "pv-magazine-usa.com" on this subject must be some kind of silly joke considering that it could as well be named "lobby-webiste-with-a-clear-political-agenda-to-push-for-photovoltaic-and-prove-it-also-cures-cancer.com" and no-one wold bat an eye. Similarly, other HN comment written by yourself usually don't count as "sources" for statements.
  • alvah 3y ago
    Don't forget to factor in the thermal generators' owners abandoning their business way before you thought they would, decades before there's a viable replacement for on-demand power to run an advanced industrial economy.
  • davedx 3y ago
    Yup exactly! https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/05/20/the-unstoppable-battery-cavalcade/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/05/20/the-unstoppabl...
• jnsaff2 3y ago
  So estimating the lifetime of the battery at 5000 cycles and lets say round trip efficiency at 95% we end up with $0.082 / kWh. (EDIT: originally I claimed $0.074 which is wrong) that the battery adds. So I'm guessing in the long run this will considerably lower the cost of electricity on the island as adding PV capacity is much cheaper than keeping a coal plant running and this battery allows to install much more and use the energy at night. Not sure whether Hawaii has much wind power but it would seem to be rather windy place.
  • rootusrootus 3y ago
    Are you assuming zero cost for the power to charge the battery?
    • jnsaff2 3y ago
      No. This is additional on top of energy production. Energy production cost was already in the base price quoted. The energy consumption will be roughly the same unless the price changes dramatically. But this allows more PV generation to be put in which is the cheapest way of producing energy.
  • RhodesianHunter 3y ago
    The windy side of Maui has a bunch of wind turbines.
  • zizee 3y ago
    Can you explain your logic a bit more? I'm struggling to understand how you calculated the $0.074, and what you are saying it represents. Edit: I suspect your calculations just represent depreciation over the batteries lifetime, which is only one of the costs involved.
    • jnsaff2 3y ago
      The capacity of the battery is 565 MWh. The cycle life of these kinds of batteries is about 5000. Meaning they get about 5000 charge and discharge cycles before their useful life is over. It could be 2000 it could be 10000 and the definition of useful is also dependent on application. So in it's lifetime this battery can store 5000 * 565 = 2825000 MWh The cost of the system was $219M. About 5% of energy is going lost due to inefficiencies. $219M / (5000 * 565 * 0.95) = $81.6/MWh = $0.082 / kWh. I am sorry for calculating the efficiency incorrectly in the original post. This does not take into account the maintenance cost.
• dalyons 3y ago
  Hawaii, a remote island in the middle of the pacific, pays less than the 2024 pg&e prices for the bay area. PG&E are the worst.
  • epistasis 3y ago
    And this is before PG&E gets around to all their deferred maintenance on lines that are likely to start deadly wildfires. One does have to wonder where all the money has gone, and what the supposed regulators at CPUC are allowing to happen.
    • ribosometronome 3y ago
      So, we're subsidizing rural lifestyles with our Bay Area power bills?
      • lokar 3y ago
        Yes, also with your home hazard insurance
        • hedora 3y ago
          That's also not true. Home insurance in rural areas is insanely expensive, assuming you can get it at all. The insurance companies explicitly refuse to subsidize high-risk houses with low risk premiums. This is why it's also becoming unaffordable / impossible to get flood insurance in parts of Mountain View / East Palo Alto. On top of that the California state government has allowed the insurance cartel to form an artificial monopoly, and then funnel new plans into it, where they can charge a large multiple of fair market rates to homeowners (due to their monopoly status, and the fact that they're an association that was formed by the companies that conspired to refuse to cover the house). Of course, they provide terrible customer service and refuse to pay out after natural disasters. Here's their web site: https://www.cfpnet.com https://www.cfpnet.com
      • hedora 3y ago
        Nope. Rural customers are not the issue. I can confirm they don't maintain rural lines, and they charge 5 figures for 2-3 hours of labor in rural areas, just like in the city. Even if they were adequately servicing rural areas, that wouldn't be the root cause. If it was, then power would be more expensive in completely rural states than it is in California. There was a lot of well-documented corruption decades ago (remember when an entire residential block exploded because they used to falsify line maintenance records and move the money into their personal accounts?) I doubt it's improved since then, and I'm pretty sure that's the root cause.
• jillesvangurp 3y ago
  People always forget that batteries also absorb power. Having a lot of renewables means there are energy spikes far exceeding what can be used in that moment. Without batteries, that energy is lost. Having batteries means that energy can be buffered and used later (e.g. in the evening). So they improve the capacity factor of existing installed renewables. Add domestic batteries, EV batteries, etc. to the mix and you also get the potential for demand shaping where you charge those when renewable energy production is spiking and prices are low. And of course even though that is currently not utilized on a large scale, all those EVs could technically provide energy back to the grid as well. Another point is that batteries like this are not actually intended for long term storage. They are instead about stabilizing the grid and dealing with short term spikes and dips in supply and demand of energy. Unlike a coal or gas plant, a battery can respond in milliseconds and be very cost effective for that. Spinning up coal and gas plants is expensive and slow. And they cost money when they are not running. And while that single coal plant was able to provide so-called baseload; it would only have been able to do so if it was up and running 24/7/365. And that wouldn't be true. They are very reliable but occasionally coal plants have to be down for maintenance, repairs, etc. and this can take quite some time (weeks/months). Same with nuclear plants. So, relying on that to not happen was never a good plan. Long term storage is always assumed to be needed to compensate for a lack of this baseload. However, baseload is actually a fuzzy notion until you express it in gwh and gw. Hawaii seems to be in the process of proving this might be a lot less than some people seem to assume. At least I'm not aware of them having any long term storage. They'll probably add more battery and resilience to their grid over time in the form of more wind and solar generation and additional batteries. But if these people modeled this correctly and did their homework, this might actually be fine as is. We'll find over time I guess.
  • bigfudge 3y ago
    Do we currently have enough renewables installed in (eg) the the UK for batteries to increase capacity factor? Is there ever enough renewable production that energy is lost?
    • Leonelf 3y ago
      Wind farms often get turned off because there is too much Wind, solar is also often throttled. There is a lot of "lost" power that could rather find its way into batteries or H2-electrolyzers.
• elihu 3y ago
  $219,000,000.00 / 185,000 kwh = $1,183.78 per kwh. Seems kind of on the expensive side, but maybe it's reasonable for this kind of project -- and there might be some big one-time costs like connecting the site to the power grid. Seems like there's a lot of room to drive costs down though. Some company could plausibly buy the batteries for $100/kwh, sell a completed power station for $200/kwh, and still make a profit.
  • jnsaff2 3y ago
    You mixed up Power and Energy.
    • elihu 3y ago
      Ah, you're right, I copied the wrong number. It's 565 MWh of storage not 185MWh.5. $219,000,000.0 / 565,000 Mwh = $387.61/kwh. That's a bit more reasonable. That's not that far out of line with paying retail prices for reputable-brand LFP cells in the U.S. https://www.thunderstruck-ev.com/calb-l173f163b.html https://www.thunderstruck-ev.com/calb-l173f163b.html
• cm2187 3y ago
  What I don't get is that this is meant to replace a 180MW coal plan, so we are talking about 3h worth of electricity at full load. Not sure how volatile is the weather in Hawaii, but in Europe, when there is no wind, it can last days not hours.
• huppeldepup 3y ago
  565 MWh = 2 TJ Fat Man was 88 TJ