3 ms·

The measure is in GW which normally makes sense for power plants because they're capable of running 24h a day. GWh per day is what batteries need to be measured

The measure is in GW which normally makes sense for power plants because they're capable of running 24h a day. GWh per day is what batteries need to be measured in and comparing a generation technology to a storage technology is a little dubious in the first place but comparing the peak output capacity is meaningless. At the very least, you need to be able to measure how much battery was discharged (in gwh) over a long term, to show it's ability to compete/compare/replace nuclear (or any other generation technology). This seems like a very clearly, "we don't need nuclear because batteries" piece that's either not well informed or misleading. Even if the case can be made, this article doesn't make it.

phil21 2y ago
It's intentionally misleading. I have never understood what this is supposed to accomplish, since it's greenwashing at it's worst and will damage the battery storage (much less solar power in general) cause far more than it helps in the long term. It's utterly rampant in the renewable power space. Eventually you run out of other people's power generation and these little wordplay tricks no longer work. Follow the money, I suppose.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  My take it is an attack tactic to convince the public that alternatives are not necessary, or the challenges don't exist. It serves to get commitment and action from people, and when/if they figure out they have been duped, they have no choice but to double down.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- tim333 2y ago
  The source for this stuff is the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). I guess politics so it looks like they are doing something? wikipedia: >The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System responsible for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating energy information to promote sound policymaking I think they could be doing a better job in the above. (source article https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=63025&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=EIAsocial&utm_id=Amplification https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=63025&utm_so...)
thehappypm 2y ago
GWh/day unit analysis— Power * time / time Equivalent to just GW scaled by a constant, no?
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  Correct, that would be intuitive. However, it is not what is being done here. When reported in press releases, battery capacity is not divided by day. Peak possible GW is reported independent of duration. This obfuscates the fact that this can only be provided for 1 or two hours
- parineum 2y ago
  No, it's not. The point of batteries is, typically, as a storage mechanism for renewables that doesn't have 100% uptime so, battery storage in itself doesn't have a defined GW used per day. The reason why I say it should be scaled to actual long term usage (preferably a calendar year) is that the capability of batteries to replace power plants is dependent on how much excess energy exists to charge them. For example, a TW of battery capability isn't going to do you any good in a Canadian winter if it's paired with solar that gets a few hours of generation a day. The comparison required to know how much fossil/nuclear generation these batteries are capable to replace is comparing the worst case scenario for the whole system, batteries and generation included. If the worst day for these batteries they discharge 2Gwh of power, they can only replace 2GW/24 of traditional power generation. The nuclear comparison is a bit ironic to me as well because one of the things that the batteries are actually very capable of is replacing the "peaker" generation that's required by nuclear/hydro/geothermal generation since it's difficult to scale those responsively. A Solar/Wind/(Nuclear|Hydro|Geo) generation backed by significant battery capacity could completely replace the need for fossil fuels in the generation side and, as renewable production and battery capacity increase, you can drop the rods a bit lower and scale back your nuclear production until it's zero. I see this article as clearly meant to refute the nuclear energy argument when, in practice, building battery capacity makes nuclear make more sense, not less.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ViewTrick1002 2y ago
The ISOs managing grids cares about the GWs and expects batteries to optimize their utilization to create the largest value for the grid enabling them to balance supply and demand. Like how they expect coal plants to manage the size of their coal pile without having to be told how to do it. This is what is necessary to manage supply and demand. For studies on the energy balance and longer term grid strength the size is relevant. In the Californian case comprising ~12 GW the ratio is 1:4 between GW and GWh. As can be seen from the Californian supply statistics this gets smeared out during the whole evening and morning to maximize the value provided. https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/supply#section-supply-trend https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/supply#section-supply-t...
- parineum 2y ago
  > The ISOs managing grids cares about the GWs and expects batteries to optimize their utilization to create the largest value for the grid enabling them to balance supply and demand. Like how they expect coal plants to manage the size of their coal pile without having to be told how to do it. What you're saying is that the ISOs care about how they can much peaker capacity these batteries can replace. That makes "Nuclear plants" an interesting metric for comparison doesn't it? Ultimately, the important measure is how many tons of CO2 these batteries can prevent from being put into the atmosphere by gas peaker plants, which are their direct competitors. Something that is actually perfectly illustrated by the graph you've posted. You can see the usage of gas and imports reducing as renewables rise while the nuclear line does what it does, stay constant. The purpose of the batteries is to reduce the gas and imports lines to what they are while the renewable lines are at their peaks.

phil21 2y ago

It's intentionally misleading. I have never understood what this is supposed to accomplish, since it's greenwashing at it's worst and will damage the battery storage (much less solar power in general) cause far more than it helps in the long term. It's utterly rampant in the renewable power space. Eventually you run out of other people's power generation and these little wordplay tricks no longer work. Follow the money, I suppose.

s1artibartfast 2y ago
My take it is an attack tactic to convince the public that alternatives are not necessary, or the challenges don't exist. It serves to get commitment and action from people, and when/if they figure out they have been duped, they have no choice but to double down.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
tim333 2y ago
The source for this stuff is the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). I guess politics so it looks like they are doing something? wikipedia: >The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System responsible for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating energy information to promote sound policymaking I think they could be doing a better job in the above. (source article https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=63025&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=EIAsocial&utm_id=Amplification https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=63025&utm_so...)

thehappypm 2y ago

GWh/day unit analysis— Power * time / time Equivalent to just GW scaled by a constant, no?

s1artibartfast 2y ago
Correct, that would be intuitive. However, it is not what is being done here. When reported in press releases, battery capacity is not divided by day. Peak possible GW is reported independent of duration. This obfuscates the fact that this can only be provided for 1 or two hours
parineum 2y ago
No, it's not. The point of batteries is, typically, as a storage mechanism for renewables that doesn't have 100% uptime so, battery storage in itself doesn't have a defined GW used per day. The reason why I say it should be scaled to actual long term usage (preferably a calendar year) is that the capability of batteries to replace power plants is dependent on how much excess energy exists to charge them. For example, a TW of battery capability isn't going to do you any good in a Canadian winter if it's paired with solar that gets a few hours of generation a day. The comparison required to know how much fossil/nuclear generation these batteries are capable to replace is comparing the worst case scenario for the whole system, batteries and generation included. If the worst day for these batteries they discharge 2Gwh of power, they can only replace 2GW/24 of traditional power generation. The nuclear comparison is a bit ironic to me as well because one of the things that the batteries are actually very capable of is replacing the "peaker" generation that's required by nuclear/hydro/geothermal generation since it's difficult to scale those responsively. A Solar/Wind/(Nuclear|Hydro|Geo) generation backed by significant battery capacity could completely replace the need for fossil fuels in the generation side and, as renewable production and battery capacity increase, you can drop the rods a bit lower and scale back your nuclear production until it's zero. I see this article as clearly meant to refute the nuclear energy argument when, in practice, building battery capacity makes nuclear make more sense, not less.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ViewTrick1002 2y ago

The ISOs managing grids cares about the GWs and expects batteries to optimize their utilization to create the largest value for the grid enabling them to balance supply and demand. Like how they expect coal plants to manage the size of their coal pile without having to be told how to do it. This is what is necessary to manage supply and demand. For studies on the energy balance and longer term grid strength the size is relevant. In the Californian case comprising ~12 GW the ratio is 1:4 between GW and GWh. As can be seen from the Californian supply statistics this gets smeared out during the whole evening and morning to maximize the value provided. https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/supply#section-supply-trend https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/supply#section-supply-t...

parineum 2y ago
> The ISOs managing grids cares about the GWs and expects batteries to optimize their utilization to create the largest value for the grid enabling them to balance supply and demand. Like how they expect coal plants to manage the size of their coal pile without having to be told how to do it. What you're saying is that the ISOs care about how they can much peaker capacity these batteries can replace. That makes "Nuclear plants" an interesting metric for comparison doesn't it? Ultimately, the important measure is how many tons of CO2 these batteries can prevent from being put into the atmosphere by gas peaker plants, which are their direct competitors. Something that is actually perfectly illustrated by the graph you've posted. You can see the usage of gas and imports reducing as renewables rise while the nuclear line does what it does, stay constant. The purpose of the batteries is to reduce the gas and imports lines to what they are while the renewable lines are at their peaks.