5 ms·

This must be orders of magnitude more expensive than pumped hydro and I would expect more expensive than lithium batteries. And unless the mine is close to an e

This must be orders of magnitude more expensive than pumped hydro and I would expect more expensive than lithium batteries. And unless the mine is close to an existing high voltage substation then there will be significant costs hooking it up to the grid. The pilot will be a 2MW generator but you can fit a 2MW inverter and a 2MWh battery into a single shipping container so the scale is really minimal.

yincrash 3y ago
Mines are heavy industrial electrical consumers already, so generally have strong grid ties.
- kurthr 3y ago
  Yeah, I'd be surprised if mines weren't in the multi MW range... but nothing like a modern hyperscale data center. Those damn things are 100MW and larger!
- jcrawfordor 3y ago
  The current hoist at this mine is 2.5MW, so that gives an idea of the existing connectivity. I actually wondered if it might be possible to reapply the main hoist at a mine for this kind of application, many already have some energy recovery. But I don't think it would be practical in that many situations because these deep mines often have other "tenants" (this one has a cosmic ray observatory for example) that will want to continue use of the main hoist---and of course it is appealing to install this type of system in operational mines when there's a disused shaft.
standardUser 3y ago
> The IIASA analysts noted that mines already have the basic infrastructure for such an endeavour, while also being connected to the power grid. “This significantly reduces the cost and facilities for the implementation of Underground Gravity Energy Storage (UGES) plants,” the study noted. Not that your wholly unsupported naysaying isn't compelling.
- barbegal 3y ago
  Connected to the grid yes but usually the interconnect is simply enough for running the mine not enough to cover many megawatts of storage capability. The battery storage companies have found that there is an abundance of fields and brownfield sites close to existing substations to place their batteries where the cost of connecting to the grid is minimal.
  - jcrawfordor 3y ago
    The hoist at this mine is 2.5MW, there's typically some ore processing on site, mines end up requiring a lot of ventilation and cooling, dewatering, most of the work vehicles used in deep mines today are electric (and these aren't light battery vehicles but heavy equipment trailing high voltage cables), I think it's very conservative to say that the mine consumed over 5MW when it was fully operational.
  - sophacles 3y ago
    > Connected to the grid yes but usually the interconnect is simply enough for running the mine not enough to cover many megawatts of storage capability Mines can use a LOT of electricity. I found a presentation from EPRI[1] talks about varoius electric vehicles and machines used in underground mining. One slide references a "mining system" that alone draws 5-10Mw. Even if you take that as "the whole mine uses 5-10MW", it means that it's grid connected well enough to handle Mw of storage. [1] EPRI is a respected R&D non-profit in the electricty sector. The slides: http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/publicmeetingmaterials/1203/jkn2sd37zwh/d1_nde_d1-5_butts.pdf http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/publicmeetingmaterials/1203/jkn2... the slide I reference is #14.
- XorNot 3y ago
  There are plenty of engineering projects which don't sound like a great idea, then turn out not to be a great idea [1]. (admittedly on that one I'm not really onboard with "oh lol why are we using wood for a bridge when we have steel" as an explanation, but conversely there were serious problems with engineering design of how wood was used on this bridge and it did collapse in the end - complexity of design versus known elements is an important consideration. A casual observation of "does this really make sense?" might've concluded that stepping so far out of bounds of normal design should have been more carefully treated or had exceptional requirements in the first place). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tretten_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tretten_Bridge
jcrawfordor 3y ago
You might be surprised how few sites are suitable for pumped hydro and how costly it is to build. I can easily see this being both cheaper and more efficient. Most pumped hydro installations outside of northern Europe end up requiring large dams to create a big enough impoundment uphill. A direct weight solution should have better conversion efficiency as well, Gravitricity quotes 80% which is on the high end of pumped hydro. The charge/discharge rate and response time also look better than a similar pumped hydro setup, unsurprisingly considering the lower inertia. It so happens that pumped hydro was considered for the same site but abandoned last year due to the high cost estimate.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  You might be surprised at the enormous numbers of sites that are potentially suitable for pumped hydro, if you go looking for them in areas with vertical relief. https://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/ https://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/ "ANU has identified 616,000 potential sites around the world." (note that not all countries are included in this because of lack of geographical elevation data) A place like Nevada has an enormous surfeit of opportunities for pumped hydro, due to the Basin and Range geography. Here's a project going forward right now. Look how tiny the basins are for the energy stored: https://www.whitepinepumpedstorage.com/ https://www.whitepinepumpedstorage.com/
  - stubish 3y ago
    More holes than we have fresh water to fill them with. Maybe someone will solve corrosion and we can use salt water.
    - pfdietz 3y ago
      Fresh water consumption is small compared to that evaporated cooling a nuclear plant of the same average power throughput.
  - hollerith 3y ago
    Your second link describes itself as "a 1,000 megawatt energy storage project". I'm interested in how much energy the site can store, about which there is no indication on that page. Do you think maybe they mean 1,000 megawatt hour?

yincrash 3y ago

Mines are heavy industrial electrical consumers already, so generally have strong grid ties.

kurthr 3y ago
Yeah, I'd be surprised if mines weren't in the multi MW range... but nothing like a modern hyperscale data center. Those damn things are 100MW and larger!
jcrawfordor 3y ago
The current hoist at this mine is 2.5MW, so that gives an idea of the existing connectivity. I actually wondered if it might be possible to reapply the main hoist at a mine for this kind of application, many already have some energy recovery. But I don't think it would be practical in that many situations because these deep mines often have other "tenants" (this one has a cosmic ray observatory for example) that will want to continue use of the main hoist---and of course it is appealing to install this type of system in operational mines when there's a disused shaft.

standardUser 3y ago

> The IIASA analysts noted that mines already have the basic infrastructure for such an endeavour, while also being connected to the power grid. “This significantly reduces the cost and facilities for the implementation of Underground Gravity Energy Storage (UGES) plants,” the study noted. Not that your wholly unsupported naysaying isn't compelling.

barbegal 3y ago
Connected to the grid yes but usually the interconnect is simply enough for running the mine not enough to cover many megawatts of storage capability. The battery storage companies have found that there is an abundance of fields and brownfield sites close to existing substations to place their batteries where the cost of connecting to the grid is minimal.
- jcrawfordor 3y ago
  The hoist at this mine is 2.5MW, there's typically some ore processing on site, mines end up requiring a lot of ventilation and cooling, dewatering, most of the work vehicles used in deep mines today are electric (and these aren't light battery vehicles but heavy equipment trailing high voltage cables), I think it's very conservative to say that the mine consumed over 5MW when it was fully operational.
- sophacles 3y ago
  > Connected to the grid yes but usually the interconnect is simply enough for running the mine not enough to cover many megawatts of storage capability Mines can use a LOT of electricity. I found a presentation from EPRI[1] talks about varoius electric vehicles and machines used in underground mining. One slide references a "mining system" that alone draws 5-10Mw. Even if you take that as "the whole mine uses 5-10MW", it means that it's grid connected well enough to handle Mw of storage. [1] EPRI is a respected R&D non-profit in the electricty sector. The slides: http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/publicmeetingmaterials/1203/jkn2sd37zwh/d1_nde_d1-5_butts.pdf http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/publicmeetingmaterials/1203/jkn2... the slide I reference is #14.
XorNot 3y ago
There are plenty of engineering projects which don't sound like a great idea, then turn out not to be a great idea [1]. (admittedly on that one I'm not really onboard with "oh lol why are we using wood for a bridge when we have steel" as an explanation, but conversely there were serious problems with engineering design of how wood was used on this bridge and it did collapse in the end - complexity of design versus known elements is an important consideration. A casual observation of "does this really make sense?" might've concluded that stepping so far out of bounds of normal design should have been more carefully treated or had exceptional requirements in the first place). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tretten_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tretten_Bridge

jcrawfordor 3y ago

You might be surprised how few sites are suitable for pumped hydro and how costly it is to build. I can easily see this being both cheaper and more efficient. Most pumped hydro installations outside of northern Europe end up requiring large dams to create a big enough impoundment uphill. A direct weight solution should have better conversion efficiency as well, Gravitricity quotes 80% which is on the high end of pumped hydro. The charge/discharge rate and response time also look better than a similar pumped hydro setup, unsurprisingly considering the lower inertia. It so happens that pumped hydro was considered for the same site but abandoned last year due to the high cost estimate.

pfdietz 3y ago
You might be surprised at the enormous numbers of sites that are potentially suitable for pumped hydro, if you go looking for them in areas with vertical relief. https://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/ https://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/ "ANU has identified 616,000 potential sites around the world." (note that not all countries are included in this because of lack of geographical elevation data) A place like Nevada has an enormous surfeit of opportunities for pumped hydro, due to the Basin and Range geography. Here's a project going forward right now. Look how tiny the basins are for the energy stored: https://www.whitepinepumpedstorage.com/ https://www.whitepinepumpedstorage.com/
- stubish 3y ago
  More holes than we have fresh water to fill them with. Maybe someone will solve corrosion and we can use salt water.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    Fresh water consumption is small compared to that evaporated cooling a nuclear plant of the same average power throughput.
- hollerith 3y ago
  Your second link describes itself as "a 1,000 megawatt energy storage project". I'm interested in how much energy the site can store, about which there is no indication on that page. Do you think maybe they mean 1,000 megawatt hour?