3 ms·

> nor are brief periods of multi-gigawatt draw/dumping as needed. Actually this is typically an issue for grid batteries. Spinning generators can easily brief

> nor are brief periods of multi-gigawatt draw/dumping as needed. Actually this is typically an issue for grid batteries. Spinning generators can easily briefly go to 10x the rated current for a second or so to smooth out big anomalies. Stationary batteries inverters can't do 10x current spikes ever - the max they can get to is more like 1.2x for a few seconds. That means you end up needing a lot of batteries to provide the same spinning reserve as one regular power station.

AnotherGoodName 1y ago
Collectively Australia's battery storage systems will be able to beat any single power plant for peak output in Australia once fully built out based on pure numbers. But for these sorts of grid oscillations the more important thing is the localization of generation. Which obviously favours the batteries over large centralized power stations in any case.
- adev_ 1y ago
  Being enthusiastic about battery technologies is one thing, spreading misinformation to support someone convictions is an other. What causes the Iberian blackout is excessive reactive power and a lack of compensation at a given time (due to multiple factors). Compensation of reactive power has strictly nothing to do with localization of generation. It barely even can be assimilated to oscillations That's complete garbage and it shows mainly you do not seem to know much about Electricity power in general.
giantg2 1y ago
Seems like pumped hydro offers a nice compromise.
- AnotherGoodName 1y ago
  Fwiw the hornsdale battery linked above cost AUD$172 million and can provide 2000MW of equivalent inertia. Link: https://www.energymagazine.com.au/sa-approves-world-first-battery-powered-grid-inertia-services/ https://www.energymagazine.com.au/sa-approves-world-first-ba... That equivalent inertia can only be done for short periods but that's exactly what grids need in stability - there's generally no lack of total generation, just a need to jump in and smooth out spikes. You can't build a dam for that price, nor could you do it in under 100 days from contract signing as that battery was built. Batteries are definitely the answer here. The 'more spinning mass' answers don't make sense since Australia literally solved the above problem in a much cheaper way already.
  - giantg2 1y ago
    You don't need to build a dam, you just need the pipes and pumps for an existing dam (or elevated natural basin).
    - _carbyau_ 1y ago
      I thought you needed two dams. One higher than the other. You pump water back and forth between the two to generate or capture energy. Is it that common that dams are already existing in nearby-ish pairs with the sufficient height difference? And that we haven't done this already? Doing this is good where we can. But it has geographical limitations. Batteries don't so much.
      - Rodeoclash 1y ago
        My layman's understanding is that most locations that are suitable for pumped storage already have pumped storage built on them.
        MobiusHorizons 1y ago
        Yep, this is the issue. That and land cost. Also pumped hydro is most useful when you need very large capacity storage, whereas for preventing blackouts you need very high capacity fast generating to fix oscillations or to allow more generating capacity to come on line. They are basically acting as decoupling capacitors (except for AC) in this application.
      - Polizeiposaune 1y ago
        You need two sufficiently large bodies of water close to each other at different elevations. You don't necessarily need two dams - for instance, the Ludington pumped storage plant adjacent to Lake Michigan uses the lake as the lower body.
- floatrock 1y ago
  Most economically-suitable locations for pumped hydro have been built out already. You can always use a ton more concrete and force new locations, but the best locations have already been utilized and scaling law of batteries has brought them to the point where they're more competitive than new hydro for this kind of use.
  - bryanlarsen 1y ago
    Most economical locations for hydro generation have been built out already. Pumped hydro doesn't require flow like generation does, so there are thousands of times more suitable locations. Those haven't been built out.
    - Maxion 1y ago
      At least in my country they have. They keep trying to build a facility but anything they come up with, the ROI just isn't there.
      - bryanlarsen 1y ago
        In other words, there are lots of places they could build, but it's just too expensive to build and/or the value of long term electricity storage is too low.
- plorg 1y ago
  Sure, if you can site it.
ajross 1y ago
That... doesn't sound correct. Inverters are the cheap part, you can literally wire as many as you want in parallel. Batteries have immense power availability, with most chemistries you can trivially deliver the entire capacity in half an hour or so (more like 5 minutes with lithium cells). Basically I'm dubious. I'm sure there are grids somewhere that have misprovisioned their inverter capacity, but I don't buy that battery facilities are inherently unable to buffer spikes. Is there a cite I can read?
- AnotherGoodName 1y ago
  Agreed. The relatively small battery substation linked above can output 2GW of equivalent inertia generation (a measure to align batteries to inertial power systems) when needed. That's an entire power station they can match for short periods of time. Link: https://www.energymagazine.com.au/sa-approves-world-first-battery-powered-grid-inertia-services/ https://www.energymagazine.com.au/sa-approves-world-first-ba... Australia's largest power plant has 2.9GW of inertial generation assuming all generators are running at 100%. As in the small battery substation alone comes close to the countries largest power station. I'm not sure where the idea that lithium ion can't dump power quickly comes from. They are absolutely phenomenal at it. Australia's building dozens of these substations too since they are so cheap and reduce overall power costs. It's a win from all points of view.
  - tacticus 1y ago
    > assuming all generators are running at 100%. which they won't ever be given the habits of coal plants to suffer outages whenever it's convenient to pump the price up.
  - bob1029 1y ago
    The article does not describe an inertia constant. Without the time component, any comparison to traditional systems is meaningless. Inertia is a measure of energy, not power. Large spinning masses can provide several seconds of inertia. For 2GW of traditional turbine, you would have between 10-20 gigawatt-seconds of energy that is instantly available at any moment to resist RoCoF.
z_rex 1y ago
A spinning generator is not outputting 10x it's rated current over any significant amount of time. You can only add so much steam or fuel to a turbine, and the rotor has a lot of inertia, but not enough to account for 10X its rated capacity for a second. The electrical switchyards would trip nearly instantaneously if it's connected plant output 10X its rated input.
- egberts1 1y ago
  You can if the load was 10x under max. before getting tripped. Misaligned oscillation can occurs under ANY load.
  - javawizard 1y ago
    Batteries would also be able to 10x if their load was 10x under max, so I'm not sure how this is relevant to GP's point.
    - lobochrome 1y ago
      The inverter would melt presumably.
      - Geezus_42 1y ago
        Just looking for an excuse. Lol
- zekrioca 1y ago
  Let alone the transmission lines totally catching fire after a 10X output increase.
  - Gud 1y ago
    Where are you getting this information from? Although I’m hardly an expert on power lines(my factory produces HV switchgear), a 1s short circuit current rating of 10x(actually more) is normal, standard to IEC norms.
outside1234 1y ago
What batteries CAN do however is go from 0W to their capacity watts in milliseconds. It is their instant-on ability that is disruptive.
- IndrekR 1y ago
  Not only from 0W, but from negative capacity (max charging power) to positive capacity (max discharging power).
pjc50 1y ago
> Spinning generators can easily briefly go to 10x the rated current for a second or so to smooth out big anomalies. I'm very suspicious of this, because it would also imply 10x overcurrent on the associated transmission gear. There's limits on how much you can overcurrent a transformer before the core magnetically saturates, for example. Also I would expect protection systems to trip out at such a huge divergence from rated current. Do we have a citation?

AnotherGoodName 1y ago

Collectively Australia's battery storage systems will be able to beat any single power plant for peak output in Australia once fully built out based on pure numbers. But for these sorts of grid oscillations the more important thing is the localization of generation. Which obviously favours the batteries over large centralized power stations in any case.

adev_ 1y ago
Being enthusiastic about battery technologies is one thing, spreading misinformation to support someone convictions is an other. What causes the Iberian blackout is excessive reactive power and a lack of compensation at a given time (due to multiple factors). Compensation of reactive power has strictly nothing to do with localization of generation. It barely even can be assimilated to oscillations That's complete garbage and it shows mainly you do not seem to know much about Electricity power in general.

giantg2 1y ago

Seems like pumped hydro offers a nice compromise.

AnotherGoodName 1y ago
Fwiw the hornsdale battery linked above cost AUD$172 million and can provide 2000MW of equivalent inertia. Link: https://www.energymagazine.com.au/sa-approves-world-first-battery-powered-grid-inertia-services/ https://www.energymagazine.com.au/sa-approves-world-first-ba... That equivalent inertia can only be done for short periods but that's exactly what grids need in stability - there's generally no lack of total generation, just a need to jump in and smooth out spikes. You can't build a dam for that price, nor could you do it in under 100 days from contract signing as that battery was built. Batteries are definitely the answer here. The 'more spinning mass' answers don't make sense since Australia literally solved the above problem in a much cheaper way already.
- giantg2 1y ago
  You don't need to build a dam, you just need the pipes and pumps for an existing dam (or elevated natural basin).
  - _carbyau_ 1y ago
    I thought you needed two dams. One higher than the other. You pump water back and forth between the two to generate or capture energy. Is it that common that dams are already existing in nearby-ish pairs with the sufficient height difference? And that we haven't done this already? Doing this is good where we can. But it has geographical limitations. Batteries don't so much.
    - Rodeoclash 1y ago
      My layman's understanding is that most locations that are suitable for pumped storage already have pumped storage built on them.
      - MobiusHorizons 1y ago
        Yep, this is the issue. That and land cost. Also pumped hydro is most useful when you need very large capacity storage, whereas for preventing blackouts you need very high capacity fast generating to fix oscillations or to allow more generating capacity to come on line. They are basically acting as decoupling capacitors (except for AC) in this application.
    - Polizeiposaune 1y ago
      You need two sufficiently large bodies of water close to each other at different elevations. You don't necessarily need two dams - for instance, the Ludington pumped storage plant adjacent to Lake Michigan uses the lake as the lower body.
floatrock 1y ago
Most economically-suitable locations for pumped hydro have been built out already. You can always use a ton more concrete and force new locations, but the best locations have already been utilized and scaling law of batteries has brought them to the point where they're more competitive than new hydro for this kind of use.
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  Most economical locations for hydro generation have been built out already. Pumped hydro doesn't require flow like generation does, so there are thousands of times more suitable locations. Those haven't been built out.
  - Maxion 1y ago
    At least in my country they have. They keep trying to build a facility but anything they come up with, the ROI just isn't there.
    - bryanlarsen 1y ago
      In other words, there are lots of places they could build, but it's just too expensive to build and/or the value of long term electricity storage is too low.
plorg 1y ago
Sure, if you can site it.

ajross 1y ago

That... doesn't sound correct. Inverters are the cheap part, you can literally wire as many as you want in parallel. Batteries have immense power availability, with most chemistries you can trivially deliver the entire capacity in half an hour or so (more like 5 minutes with lithium cells). Basically I'm dubious. I'm sure there are grids somewhere that have misprovisioned their inverter capacity, but I don't buy that battery facilities are inherently unable to buffer spikes. Is there a cite I can read?

AnotherGoodName 1y ago
Agreed. The relatively small battery substation linked above can output 2GW of equivalent inertia generation (a measure to align batteries to inertial power systems) when needed. That's an entire power station they can match for short periods of time. Link: https://www.energymagazine.com.au/sa-approves-world-first-battery-powered-grid-inertia-services/ https://www.energymagazine.com.au/sa-approves-world-first-ba... Australia's largest power plant has 2.9GW of inertial generation assuming all generators are running at 100%. As in the small battery substation alone comes close to the countries largest power station. I'm not sure where the idea that lithium ion can't dump power quickly comes from. They are absolutely phenomenal at it. Australia's building dozens of these substations too since they are so cheap and reduce overall power costs. It's a win from all points of view.
- tacticus 1y ago
  > assuming all generators are running at 100%. which they won't ever be given the habits of coal plants to suffer outages whenever it's convenient to pump the price up.
- bob1029 1y ago
  The article does not describe an inertia constant. Without the time component, any comparison to traditional systems is meaningless. Inertia is a measure of energy, not power. Large spinning masses can provide several seconds of inertia. For 2GW of traditional turbine, you would have between 10-20 gigawatt-seconds of energy that is instantly available at any moment to resist RoCoF.

z_rex 1y ago

A spinning generator is not outputting 10x it's rated current over any significant amount of time. You can only add so much steam or fuel to a turbine, and the rotor has a lot of inertia, but not enough to account for 10X its rated capacity for a second. The electrical switchyards would trip nearly instantaneously if it's connected plant output 10X its rated input.

egberts1 1y ago
You can if the load was 10x under max. before getting tripped. Misaligned oscillation can occurs under ANY load.
- javawizard 1y ago
  Batteries would also be able to 10x if their load was 10x under max, so I'm not sure how this is relevant to GP's point.
  - lobochrome 1y ago
    The inverter would melt presumably.
    - Geezus_42 1y ago
      Just looking for an excuse. Lol
zekrioca 1y ago
Let alone the transmission lines totally catching fire after a 10X output increase.
- Gud 1y ago
  Where are you getting this information from? Although I’m hardly an expert on power lines(my factory produces HV switchgear), a 1s short circuit current rating of 10x(actually more) is normal, standard to IEC norms.

outside1234 1y ago

What batteries CAN do however is go from 0W to their capacity watts in milliseconds. It is their instant-on ability that is disruptive.

IndrekR 1y ago
Not only from 0W, but from negative capacity (max charging power) to positive capacity (max discharging power).

pjc50 1y ago

> Spinning generators can easily briefly go to 10x the rated current for a second or so to smooth out big anomalies. I'm very suspicious of this, because it would also imply 10x overcurrent on the associated transmission gear. There's limits on how much you can overcurrent a transformer before the core magnetically saturates, for example. Also I would expect protection systems to trip out at such a huge divergence from rated current. Do we have a citation?