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Grid storage needn’t rely on batteries at all. We could store energy as hydrogen for example. AFAIK that’s the most proven way for storing months worth of energ

Grid storage needn’t rely on batteries at all. We could store energy as hydrogen for example. AFAIK that’s the most proven way for storing months worth of energy.

LeonM 2y ago
I haven't familiarised myself with the latest in hydrogen development, but isn't the round trip efficiency absolutely horrible? Not to mention boil off and leakage (afaik no material exists that can store hydrogen without leaking). Hydrogen as energy storage would be amazing, but as far as I am aware it is still far from practical at this point.
- adrianN 2y ago
  Efficiency only matters in so far as it affects cost per MWh. It is plausible (from what I heard at least) that hydrogen is cheaper at the required scale than batteries. After all we will likely have incredible oversupply during long summer days where electricity is essentially free. Scaling battery manufacturing to store enough power for a whole winter is difficult. In any case I think storage is something where „let the market figure it out“ is a reasonable strategy.
- beAbU 2y ago
  Round-trip efficiency is not the only variable at play here. Storage plant longevity, self-discharge over very long periods of time, cost of installation and maintenance, cost to the environment to source the raw materials etc also play a big role. Round trip efficiency might be way less than any other method of storage, but it might win out on all the other points. I don't know the answer though - just saying it's important in discussions like these to not get hung up on single metrics. We're not playing trump cards.
h0l0cube 2y ago
Never meant to imply that, though hydrogen is just a different manner of chemical storage and wildly inefficient. Pumped hydro (gravity storage) is also doing its part, but not really growing in the exponential manner as battery cells[0]. I'd be curious to know if there's any non-'battery' storage technologies that are on a similar growth curve. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1304113/pumped-storage-hydropower-capacity-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1304113/pumped-storage-h...
pfdietz 2y ago
Hydrogen is not good for daily storage, where round trip efficiency is important. It is much better for very long term storage or rare event backup, where RTE is much less important. RTE does become less important as the cost of the input energy declines in comparison to the cost of the storage system.
pjc50 2y ago
Hydrogen is the least proven one. It looks good on paper but there's remarkably little green electrolysis being done and most of it is going to industrial use to replace "brown" H2. Storing H2 at the same scale as existing natural gas storage is tricky because it diffuses much more.
- adrianN 2y ago
  Why would you expect a lot of electrolysis right now? There is basically no market since electricity oversupply is still a relatively rare event and natgas is cheap. That doesn’t mean that the technology is immature.

Grid storage needn’t rely on batteries at all. We could store energy as hydrogen for example. AFAIK that’s the most proven way for storing months worth of energy.

LeonM 2y ago

I haven't familiarised myself with the latest in hydrogen development, but isn't the round trip efficiency absolutely horrible? Not to mention boil off and leakage (afaik no material exists that can store hydrogen without leaking). Hydrogen as energy storage would be amazing, but as far as I am aware it is still far from practical at this point.

adrianN 2y ago
Efficiency only matters in so far as it affects cost per MWh. It is plausible (from what I heard at least) that hydrogen is cheaper at the required scale than batteries. After all we will likely have incredible oversupply during long summer days where electricity is essentially free. Scaling battery manufacturing to store enough power for a whole winter is difficult. In any case I think storage is something where „let the market figure it out“ is a reasonable strategy.
beAbU 2y ago
Round-trip efficiency is not the only variable at play here. Storage plant longevity, self-discharge over very long periods of time, cost of installation and maintenance, cost to the environment to source the raw materials etc also play a big role. Round trip efficiency might be way less than any other method of storage, but it might win out on all the other points. I don't know the answer though - just saying it's important in discussions like these to not get hung up on single metrics. We're not playing trump cards.

h0l0cube 2y ago

Never meant to imply that, though hydrogen is just a different manner of chemical storage and wildly inefficient. Pumped hydro (gravity storage) is also doing its part, but not really growing in the exponential manner as battery cells[0]. I'd be curious to know if there's any non-'battery' storage technologies that are on a similar growth curve. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1304113/pumped-storage-hydropower-capacity-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1304113/pumped-storage-h...

pfdietz 2y ago

Hydrogen is not good for daily storage, where round trip efficiency is important. It is much better for very long term storage or rare event backup, where RTE is much less important. RTE does become less important as the cost of the input energy declines in comparison to the cost of the storage system.

pjc50 2y ago

Hydrogen is the least proven one. It looks good on paper but there's remarkably little green electrolysis being done and most of it is going to industrial use to replace "brown" H2. Storing H2 at the same scale as existing natural gas storage is tricky because it diffuses much more.

adrianN 2y ago
Why would you expect a lot of electrolysis right now? There is basically no market since electricity oversupply is still a relatively rare event and natgas is cheap. That doesn’t mean that the technology is immature.