4 ms·

If Germany gets this right, then, very little gas. The role of gas peaker plants in a system dominated by PV and wind is as a dispatchable backup for weather pa

by svara 2y ago

If Germany gets this right, then, very little gas. The role of gas peaker plants in a system dominated by PV and wind is as a dispatchable backup for weather patterns in which storage is insufficient. By building out storage, load shifting and long distance transmission, you can squeeze out gas almost completely. You still need it for those very low probability situations that would be disproportionately expensive to also cover with storage (since storage becomes exponentially more expensive the more you build, since it needs to be used exponentially less). At some point, it'll hopefully be possible to eliminate carbon emissions from gas plants entirely with CCS or by burning synthetic gas.

zozbot234 2y ago
How can you realistically build out storage when the bulk of current storage is pumped hydro, which can't realistically be scaled up and is not obviously enough for the possibility of lengthy, geographically vast "cold snaps" of renewables-hostile weather. Is this about feasible, proven technology or just sci-fi speculation?
- anovikov 2y ago
  Just add batteries. It's cheap. Fleet of installed grid batteries will exceed pumped hydro in maybe 2-3 years and will keep expanding at a crazy rate after. Storage is solved. In general, renewable electricity is solved. Energy transition problems is now about marine and air transport for which no applicable solution exists yet (ammonia is too problematic from too many angles and hydrogen stubbornly refuses to really take off).
- defrost 2y ago
  With a turnover of over 15.7 billion euros, and a 46 percent growth increase in comparison to 2022, the energy storage sector’s expansion in Germany continues at a fast pace ... The toal capacity of household storage devices now has reached about 6 gigawatts, roughly equal to the capacity of Germany’s pumped hydro storage installations, the association said. ~ https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/energy-storage-capacity-continues-solid-growth-germany-households-lead-charge https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/energy-storage-capacity...
- svara 2y ago
  Don't ask me, go do your own research if you really want to learn about this. It's a complex topic. I agree that nuclear should have it's place in a modern energy grid for the time being, but the skepticism towards renewables from nuclear proponents is also not right. It may have been justified twenty years ago, but the world is different now. The thing is that there's isn't one answer to how to smooth out renewable production, making it harder to mentally model than a simple "just build nuclear". I'm going to just give a few ones that you need to take together: * You don't need pumped hydro. There's a massive yearly 650 TWh of hydro in Europe, which can serve as a "virtual battery" by using it only when other renewable sources are low. The same, to a lesser extent, is true for bio-methane. * Electricity is just about 10% of primary energy. The other 90% contain many sources of demand that are extremely amenable to load shifting. Cars, heating, to name two massive ones. * Short term variations in renewable output (i.e, anything shorter than seasonal) can be smoothed by batteries, eventually. Not today, but, like PV, battery cost is on a staggering exponential decline. * The EU has an integrated grid, nuclear will continue to be used in all European countries at least indirectly through imports. From a high level economic perspective: The low and declining cost of a kWh PV provides a massive economic incentive to solve this.
- adrianN 2y ago
  You build electrolyzers and batteries?
  - TheLoafOfBread 2y ago
    * Pumped storage is hours of electric output * Battery storage is minutes of electric output Cold snaps and inversions (clouds are low, no wind, cold) are counted in days to weeks.
    - adrianN 2y ago
      > You build electrolyzers New solar parks often come with a couple of hours of battery storage. You numbers seem to be out of date.
      - TheLoafOfBread 2y ago
        No they are not. It is either 30 minutes at MW range or hours at kW range. And countries are taking GW
    - derriz 2y ago
      Battery storage systems generally provide 4 hours of full power output per daily cycle not minutes and are specifically designed to exploit the most typical daily demand cycle which has a 4 hour peak. You're mixing up the use of batteries for grid stabilization with their use for storage.
      - TheLoafOfBread 2y ago
        Generally more like 20 minutes.
        derriz 2y ago
        That’s not true - the average storage duration for grid batteries used in non-stabalization roles is 4 hours - see https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51798 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51798 and that’s from a few years ago. Since then the xMW, 4xMWh format has become almost universal.
- energy123 2y ago
  > How can you realistically build out storage when the bulk of current storage is pumped hydr You build batteries like what California is doing. > possibility of length, geographically vast "cold snaps" The correlation between renewables drops off literally exponentially as a function of distance, creating a diversification effect that makes this situation sufficiently rare. The bigger the land mass, the better. You also overbuild by a bit to handle droughts, and curtail in normal periods. In the circumstances that it still happens, you use natural gas as a backstop, or you use long-duration clean storage like hydrogen (which remains more hypothetical/expensive currently, but that will change).
- anonym29 2y ago
  I'm not making the argument that grid-scale storage is currently feasible, but there are some really interesting developments on sand batteries, CO2 batteries, and plastic batteries, among others. They're at various stages of development and all have unique pros and cons (cost, efficiency, longevity, scalability, etc), but I suspect renewables + storage will eventually prove to be exceedingly cost efficient once we figure out the "right" way to do them. Hydrocarbons have had centuries of process improvements and optimizations - I think it's only fair to give renewables a chance to catch up, no?

by svara 2y ago

zozbot234 2y ago

How can you realistically build out storage when the bulk of current storage is pumped hydro, which can't realistically be scaled up and is not obviously enough for the possibility of lengthy, geographically vast "cold snaps" of renewables-hostile weather. Is this about feasible, proven technology or just sci-fi speculation?

anovikov 2y ago
Just add batteries. It's cheap. Fleet of installed grid batteries will exceed pumped hydro in maybe 2-3 years and will keep expanding at a crazy rate after. Storage is solved. In general, renewable electricity is solved. Energy transition problems is now about marine and air transport for which no applicable solution exists yet (ammonia is too problematic from too many angles and hydrogen stubbornly refuses to really take off).
defrost 2y ago
With a turnover of over 15.7 billion euros, and a 46 percent growth increase in comparison to 2022, the energy storage sector’s expansion in Germany continues at a fast pace ... The toal capacity of household storage devices now has reached about 6 gigawatts, roughly equal to the capacity of Germany’s pumped hydro storage installations, the association said. ~ https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/energy-storage-capacity-continues-solid-growth-germany-households-lead-charge https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/energy-storage-capacity...
svara 2y ago
Don't ask me, go do your own research if you really want to learn about this. It's a complex topic. I agree that nuclear should have it's place in a modern energy grid for the time being, but the skepticism towards renewables from nuclear proponents is also not right. It may have been justified twenty years ago, but the world is different now. The thing is that there's isn't one answer to how to smooth out renewable production, making it harder to mentally model than a simple "just build nuclear". I'm going to just give a few ones that you need to take together: * You don't need pumped hydro. There's a massive yearly 650 TWh of hydro in Europe, which can serve as a "virtual battery" by using it only when other renewable sources are low. The same, to a lesser extent, is true for bio-methane. * Electricity is just about 10% of primary energy. The other 90% contain many sources of demand that are extremely amenable to load shifting. Cars, heating, to name two massive ones. * Short term variations in renewable output (i.e, anything shorter than seasonal) can be smoothed by batteries, eventually. Not today, but, like PV, battery cost is on a staggering exponential decline. * The EU has an integrated grid, nuclear will continue to be used in all European countries at least indirectly through imports. From a high level economic perspective: The low and declining cost of a kWh PV provides a massive economic incentive to solve this.
adrianN 2y ago
You build electrolyzers and batteries?
- TheLoafOfBread 2y ago
  * Pumped storage is hours of electric output * Battery storage is minutes of electric output Cold snaps and inversions (clouds are low, no wind, cold) are counted in days to weeks.
  - adrianN 2y ago
    > You build electrolyzers New solar parks often come with a couple of hours of battery storage. You numbers seem to be out of date.
    - TheLoafOfBread 2y ago
      No they are not. It is either 30 minutes at MW range or hours at kW range. And countries are taking GW
  - derriz 2y ago
    Battery storage systems generally provide 4 hours of full power output per daily cycle not minutes and are specifically designed to exploit the most typical daily demand cycle which has a 4 hour peak. You're mixing up the use of batteries for grid stabilization with their use for storage.
    - TheLoafOfBread 2y ago
      Generally more like 20 minutes.
      - derriz 2y ago
        That’s not true - the average storage duration for grid batteries used in non-stabalization roles is 4 hours - see https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51798 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51798 and that’s from a few years ago. Since then the xMW, 4xMWh format has become almost universal.
energy123 2y ago
> How can you realistically build out storage when the bulk of current storage is pumped hydr You build batteries like what California is doing. > possibility of length, geographically vast "cold snaps" The correlation between renewables drops off literally exponentially as a function of distance, creating a diversification effect that makes this situation sufficiently rare. The bigger the land mass, the better. You also overbuild by a bit to handle droughts, and curtail in normal periods. In the circumstances that it still happens, you use natural gas as a backstop, or you use long-duration clean storage like hydrogen (which remains more hypothetical/expensive currently, but that will change).
anonym29 2y ago
I'm not making the argument that grid-scale storage is currently feasible, but there are some really interesting developments on sand batteries, CO2 batteries, and plastic batteries, among others. They're at various stages of development and all have unique pros and cons (cost, efficiency, longevity, scalability, etc), but I suspect renewables + storage will eventually prove to be exceedingly cost efficient once we figure out the "right" way to do them. Hydrocarbons have had centuries of process improvements and optimizations - I think it's only fair to give renewables a chance to catch up, no?