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Or build more renewables. If that's the cheapest thing to do, of course.

toomuchtodo 1y ago
And batteries: China launches world’s first grid-forming sodium-ion battery storage plant - https://www.ess-news.com/2025/06/03/china-launches-worlds-first-grid-forming-sodium-ion-battery-storage-plant/ https://www.ess-news.com/2025/06/03/china-launches-worlds-fi... - June 3rd, 2025 ("With a total investment of over CNY 460 million [$63.8 million] and occupying 34k square metres, the Baochi plant is designed for an installed capacity of 200MW/400MWh. Based on a dual daily charge-discharge cycle, it can regulate up to 580 GWh annually — enough to power 270,000 households, with 98 per cent of its energy sourced from renewables. The facility supports more than 30 local wind and solar power stations, alleviating the impact of intermittent supply and facilitating the integration of high shares of renewables into the grid.") China Already Makes as Many Batteries as the Entire World Wants - https://about.bnef.com/blog/china-already-makes-as-many-batteries-as-the-entire-world-wants/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/china-already-makes-as-many-batt... - April 19th, 2024
- drob518 1y ago
  Chemical batteries are one possibility. They’re expensive and it’s not clear how reliable they are going to be at scale, but yes, the could help for some periods. There are also capacity limitations. They are probably better for day/night scenarios, not weeks-long weather patterns. Some of the ideas like using energy to pump water uphill into a reservoir and then generating hydro power when you release it back down into a lower reservoir are interesting in terms of reliability, but they aren’t great for efficiency (hydro generation inefficiency). You can do that without having a natural river, which reduces some of the ecological issues with dams.
- drob518 1y ago
  Also, that article about China making as many batteries as the world needs is deceiving if we’re talking about grid scale capacity as opposed to house scale or vehicle batteries. If the world went 100% into renewable energy with grid-scale battery deployment to provide extra capacity to make up for renewable generation variation, there’s no way China could keep up. That’s a LOT of batteries and ongoing replacement as they age and fail.
  - bryanlarsen 1y ago
    Actually, we're pretty close. Estimates put the number of batteries required for decarbonizing the grid at about 30TWh. China has about 1TWh of annual capacity, with capacity increasing close to 50% per annum. Grid storage battery life is about 20 years.
    - drob518 1y ago
      Interesting. We will see if that pans out as expected. I’m skeptical, but maybe. If so, cool!
drob518 1y ago
Well, then you need some diversity strategy such that you aren’t just building more stuff that also goes offline. And you would need it to be able to flex up in a controlled fashion to make up for losses in other geographies. That’s hard with wind and solar. They don’t flex very well. When things are going well, you get what you get. There’s no way to make the wind blow harder or make the sun shine more brightly when you want it. You need well controlled base load capacity. Of nuclear, gas, and coal, nuclear is clean and basically renewable for all intents and purposes (it’s not, but it might as well be).
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- amanaplanacanal 1y ago
  I'm sure utilities will build whatever they think is cheapest, whether that be nuclear, excess wind and solar, batteries, or whatever.
- AndrewDucker 1y ago
  Depends on whether they go to zero, or just drop to 50% of normal output. If it's the latter, then it might be cheaper to build twice as much wind as you'd need at optimal times than to build a nuclear plant. You'd need to do the maths for the specific situation. (And also if they drop to 0% for an occasional hour then you can use batteries. If once every five years they drop to 0% for two weeks then you absolutely need to have something else that can fill that gap.)

And batteries: China launches world’s first grid-forming sodium-ion battery storage plant - https://www.ess-news.com/2025/06/03/china-launches-worlds-first-grid-forming-sodium-ion-battery-storage-plant/ https://www.ess-news.com/2025/06/03/china-launches-worlds-fi... - June 3rd, 2025 ("With a total investment of over CNY 460 million [$63.8 million] and occupying 34k square metres, the Baochi plant is designed for an installed capacity of 200MW/400MWh. Based on a dual daily charge-discharge cycle, it can regulate up to 580 GWh annually — enough to power 270,000 households, with 98 per cent of its energy sourced from renewables. The facility supports more than 30 local wind and solar power stations, alleviating the impact of intermittent supply and facilitating the integration of high shares of renewables into the grid.") China Already Makes as Many Batteries as the Entire World Wants - https://about.bnef.com/blog/china-already-makes-as-many-batteries-as-the-entire-world-wants/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/china-already-makes-as-many-batt... - April 19th, 2024

drob518 1y ago
Chemical batteries are one possibility. They’re expensive and it’s not clear how reliable they are going to be at scale, but yes, the could help for some periods. There are also capacity limitations. They are probably better for day/night scenarios, not weeks-long weather patterns. Some of the ideas like using energy to pump water uphill into a reservoir and then generating hydro power when you release it back down into a lower reservoir are interesting in terms of reliability, but they aren’t great for efficiency (hydro generation inefficiency). You can do that without having a natural river, which reduces some of the ecological issues with dams.
drob518 1y ago
Also, that article about China making as many batteries as the world needs is deceiving if we’re talking about grid scale capacity as opposed to house scale or vehicle batteries. If the world went 100% into renewable energy with grid-scale battery deployment to provide extra capacity to make up for renewable generation variation, there’s no way China could keep up. That’s a LOT of batteries and ongoing replacement as they age and fail.
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  Actually, we're pretty close. Estimates put the number of batteries required for decarbonizing the grid at about 30TWh. China has about 1TWh of annual capacity, with capacity increasing close to 50% per annum. Grid storage battery life is about 20 years.
  - drob518 1y ago
    Interesting. We will see if that pans out as expected. I’m skeptical, but maybe. If so, cool!

drob518 1y ago

Well, then you need some diversity strategy such that you aren’t just building more stuff that also goes offline. And you would need it to be able to flex up in a controlled fashion to make up for losses in other geographies. That’s hard with wind and solar. They don’t flex very well. When things are going well, you get what you get. There’s no way to make the wind blow harder or make the sun shine more brightly when you want it. You need well controlled base load capacity. Of nuclear, gas, and coal, nuclear is clean and basically renewable for all intents and purposes (it’s not, but it might as well be).

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
amanaplanacanal 1y ago
I'm sure utilities will build whatever they think is cheapest, whether that be nuclear, excess wind and solar, batteries, or whatever.
AndrewDucker 1y ago
Depends on whether they go to zero, or just drop to 50% of normal output. If it's the latter, then it might be cheaper to build twice as much wind as you'd need at optimal times than to build a nuclear plant. You'd need to do the maths for the specific situation. (And also if they drop to 0% for an occasional hour then you can use batteries. If once every five years they drop to 0% for two weeks then you absolutely need to have something else that can fill that gap.)