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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

#41

Post by fcanesin »

epistasis wrote: post #37
fcanesin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure much better, this California push is a subsidy for battery storage. Not a economical choice. Pumped storage has even the advantage of that it can be implemented during construction of hydroelectric power plants, you just need the interconnected grid, but you will need the grid either way with renewables. In other words: you don't need to build a reservoir. You just need to pump back of the exit of a already exis…

This is flat out wrong, the cost per MWh for stored electricity compares favorably to the natural gas peaker plants that it's replacing, at least when they're built on a usual schedule. I would also like to see evidence for th claim about reusing existing hydroelectric plants, because that does not seem to be consistent with anything I've seen before. It would be very welcome news to me!

Every hydroelectric is a specific project and the waterfall size and volume usually determines the type of turbine (pelton, francis and kaplan are the most popular from high to low) .. the denomination of pumped storage systems is applied when a reversible turbine is used, so no standard hydroelectric with a reservoir will be called pumped system, those are called impoundment. If you abuse nomenclature could be a open-loop pumped system.

Discussion with example here: http://e360.yale.edu/features/for_storing_electricity_utilit...

Economic comments here: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph240/galvan-lopez2/

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

#42

Post by pavanred »

lliiffee wrote: post #35

Can anyone explain the logic behind having lots of small batteries, rather than the power company buying a Big Battery and offering this as a service? Two reasons occur to me: 1. Situations off the grid or with unreliable power (eg blackouts) 2. Transmission costs are high, so it's better to have the storage close to the source. Even in the second case, it seems like the power company could distribute these. I wonder…

Can we not use an inverter, convert to AC, step up and use the existing infrastructure for transmission.

Besides, I guess there should be an added advantage to monitoring and using (charge/discharge) the batteries better than letting the user do the maintenance like preventing discharging to zero, temperature etc.

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

#43

Post by Animats »

epistasis wrote: post #37
fcanesin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure much better, this California push is a subsidy for battery storage. Not a economical choice. Pumped storage has even the advantage of that it can be implemented during construction of hydroelectric power plants, you just need the interconnected grid, but you will need the grid either way with renewables. In other words: you don't need to build a reservoir. You just need to pump back of the exit of a already exis…

This is flat out wrong, the cost per MWh for stored electricity compares favorably to the natural gas peaker plants that it's replacing, at least when they're built on a usual schedule. I would also like to see evidence for th claim about reusing existing hydroelectric plants, because that does not seem to be consistent with anything I've seen before. It would be very welcome news to me!

Some of the reservoirs of the California Water Project are used for pumped storage. Water is pumped uphill at night, and some of it is let back down in the afternoon. This would never pay for the reservoir and plant, but it covers the power bill.

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

#45

Post by agumonkey »

karyon wrote: post #28
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.

Kinda like nuclear core vs nuclear plant ?

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

#46

Post by sitharus »

lliiffee wrote: post #35

Can anyone explain the logic behind having lots of small batteries, rather than the power company buying a Big Battery and offering this as a service? Two reasons occur to me: 1. Situations off the grid or with unreliable power (eg blackouts) 2. Transmission costs are high, so it's better to have the storage close to the source. Even in the second case, it seems like the power company could distribute these. I wonder…

2 is the main reason. Transmission is the biggest loss so by having the storage close to the consumer you need less storage for a given end user consumption.

Also availability of lithium cells isn't that great at the moment. It'll improve as factories come online.

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

#48

Post by jccooper »

Nition wrote: post #32
secabeen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pumped storage hydro is great, but it is limited to places that have the right terrain.

I wonder what the cost would be of pumped storage in just like a massive water tank on a hill, or a big manually dug out lake, rather than in somewhere that could actually be a natural lake.

Taum Sauk, an artificial pumped storage facility which famously failed, was rebuilt to 3600 MW·h for $490 million. So that was like $136 per kwh capacity, though I think they didn't have to do much for the lower reservoir (which was built in the 60s). Seems to be a lot better than batteries, though still requires appropriate terrain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taum_Sauk_Hydroelectric_Power_...

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

#49

Post by fcanesin »

epistasis wrote: post #37
fcanesin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure much better, this California push is a subsidy for battery storage. Not a economical choice. Pumped storage has even the advantage of that it can be implemented during construction of hydroelectric power plants, you just need the interconnected grid, but you will need the grid either way with renewables. In other words: you don't need to build a reservoir. You just need to pump back of the exit of a already exis…

This is flat out wrong, the cost per MWh for stored electricity compares favorably to the natural gas peaker plants that it's replacing, at least when they're built on a usual schedule. I would also like to see evidence for th claim about reusing existing hydroelectric plants, because that does not seem to be consistent with anything I've seen before. It would be very welcome news to me!

To complete here are two examples in US of existing hydroelectric that had pumped systems added in latter date (decades after operation start) becoming the so-called open-loop system I referred:

[1]Richard B. Russell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_B._Russell_Dam

[2]Grand Coulee: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Coulee_Dam

So before saying something is "flat out wrong" be sure you are not ignorant on the subject.

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