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Tesla – Lithium-ion storage is ready to power the grid

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Re: Tesla – Lithium-ion storage is ready to power the grid

#21

Post by greglindahl »

synicalx wrote: post #19

I'm curious - if you take a normal Li-ion battery out of a phone (for example) and whack it with a hammer it'll put on a pretty decent and dangerous show. Can the same thing happen to a big battery? I'd imagine they wouldn't be as 'flimsy' as the ones in a phone, and weight isn't really an issue so they could happily have some kind of extra insulation/shielding.

Why yes, there's engineering that goes into stopping a fire from spreading. Here's some info about a fire safety test done to a Tesla Powerpack:

https://electrek.co/2016/12/19/tesla-fire-powerpack-test-saf...

Re: Tesla – Lithium-ion storage is ready to power the grid

#22

Post by lobster_johnson »

synicalx wrote: post #19

I'm curious - if you take a normal Li-ion battery out of a phone (for example) and whack it with a hammer it'll put on a pretty decent and dangerous show. Can the same thing happen to a big battery? I'd imagine they wouldn't be as 'flimsy' as the ones in a phone, and weight isn't really an issue so they could happily have some kind of extra insulation/shielding.

Relevant: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38637357

Re: Tesla – Lithium-ion storage is ready to power the grid

#23

Post by drcross »

petra wrote: post #15

There's a missing parameter here: the number of recharge cycles a battery can have without losing large capacity , because over the long term - decades, like done in this business, that's what determines the cost per kwh charge stored and supplied, i.e. what end users pay for. Without those numbers, it's not possibe to judge Tesla against the competition, for example Alevo, which claims more the 50,000 charge cycles,…

Early compiled reports by Tesla users suggest that there is far more cycles on those cells than many had previously anticipated. https://electrek.co/2016/11/01/tesla-battery-degradation/

Re: Tesla – Lithium-ion storage is ready to power the grid

#24

Post by synicalx »

greglindahl wrote: post #21
synicalx wrote: post #19

I'm curious - if you take a normal Li-ion battery out of a phone (for example) and whack it with a hammer it'll put on a pretty decent and dangerous show. Can the same thing happen to a big battery? I'd imagine they wouldn't be as 'flimsy' as the ones in a phone, and weight isn't really an issue so they could happily have some kind of extra insulation/shielding.

Why yes, there's engineering that goes into stopping a fire from spreading. Here's some info about a fire safety test done to a Tesla Powerpack: https://electrek.co/2016/12/19/tesla-fire-powerpack-test-saf...

Nice, thanks for the link, I was sort of hoping it would explode violently but probably good that it didn't.

Re: Tesla – Lithium-ion storage is ready to power the grid

#25

Post by epistasis »

petra wrote: post #15

There's a missing parameter here: the number of recharge cycles a battery can have without losing large capacity , because over the long term - decades, like done in this business, that's what determines the cost per kwh charge stored and supplied, i.e. what end users pay for. Without those numbers, it's not possibe to judge Tesla against the competition, for example Alevo, which claims more the 50,000 charge cycles,…

$0.03/kWh delivered is an order of magnitude less than current lithium ion systems which ranges $0.285/kWh - $0.581/kWh delivered to the grid after storage. [1].

Since the data going into Lazard's models are probably at least more than a year old, I wouldn't be surprised if its currently $0.15-$0.30/kWh to store and then deliver a kWh of electricity.

The largest price difference in Southern California Edison's time-of-use tiers is from $0.11/kWh to $0.47/kWh, so I expect that the systems that Southern California Edison is currently installing are fairly cost efficient for them.

If Alevo can actually deliver at $0.03/kWh at scale (and personally I'm skeptical of something that sounds so good), then that's game over for all fossil fuels and nuclear on the electrical grid.

[1] https://www.lazard.com/media/438042/lazard-levelized-cost-of...

Re: Tesla – Lithium-ion storage is ready to power the grid

#26

Post by epistasis »

synicalx wrote: post #19

I'm curious - if you take a normal Li-ion battery out of a phone (for example) and whack it with a hammer it'll put on a pretty decent and dangerous show. Can the same thing happen to a big battery? I'd imagine they wouldn't be as 'flimsy' as the ones in a phone, and weight isn't really an issue so they could happily have some kind of extra insulation/shielding.

Yes, but fortunately it's a bit easier to deal with than natural gas.

Re: Tesla – Lithium-ion storage is ready to power the grid

#28

Post by karyon »

supermatt wrote: post #27

"battery plants take up a much smaller footprint than gas-powered plants" Im pretty confused by this. The energy density of LPG is 10x that of lithium-ion, so why isn't the footprint smaller?

just guessing, maybe they mean the whole facility.

Re: Tesla – Lithium-ion storage is ready to power the grid

#29

Post by Nition »

petra wrote: post #15

There's a missing parameter here: the number of recharge cycles a battery can have without losing large capacity , because over the long term - decades, like done in this business, that's what determines the cost per kwh charge stored and supplied, i.e. what end users pay for. Without those numbers, it's not possibe to judge Tesla against the competition, for example Alevo, which claims more the 50,000 charge cycles,…

I also wonder how it compares in cost to pumped storage hydroelectric.

You can use excess power to pump water uphill and then release it to generate hydro power when needed. Requires the right geography but it can essentially store huge amounts of power and it's apparently pretty cost effective.

California already has at least a couple that I can see:

- Helms Pumped Storage Plant[1] - 1.2GW capacity

- Castaic Power Plant[2] - 1.5GW capacity

That's like 60+ tesla plants each.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms_Pumped_Storage_Plant

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castaic_Power_Plant

Re: Tesla – Lithium-ion storage is ready to power the grid

#30

Post by stcredzero »

briffle wrote: post #8
stcredzero wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the cost of the project needs to drop by half not the cost of the batteries Manufacture larger self-contained units the size of a standard shipping container?

that would be awesome, but would be one heavy shipping container..

Make it a 10ft shipping container. (1/4th size) That should be good for a full standard load of around 30 tons, with some empty space for equipment access. Maybe redox flow batteries will win for the grid scale use case, because it could become feasible to process the solution in-situ and save a bunch of shipping weight.
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