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Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

theguardian.com

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Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#111

Post by prawn »

mabcat wrote: post #9
politician wrote: post #4

Would someone explain what this battery is for or the surrounding context? The article spends most of its word count on abstract politics.

Briefly and maybe not 100% truthy: the state of South Australia produces a lot of its electricity from a wind farm. It brings in extra power from another state over a giant cable (the interconnect). A while ago a storm damaged the interconnect and this triggered cascading failsafes that shut down a lot of the state. The wind farm has been a thumb in the eye of the federal government, who is huge on coal. The feds los…

Just before that last step, I believe there were 50-100 bids to provide the battery solution. Tesla may not have been a local bid, but I'd say there are other advantages in Musk even visiting Adelaide - made world news, might inspire business confidence, etc.

Tesla's battery guy said they could solve SA's power woes within 100 days. Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes tweeted Elon: "how serious are you about this bet? If I can make the $ happen (& politics), can you guarantee the 100MW in 100 days?"

Elon replied: "Tesla will get the system installed and working 100 days from contract signature or it is free. That serious enough for you?"

Mike's response: "legend! ️ You’re on mate. Give me 7 days to try sort out politics & funding. DM me a quote for approx 100MW cost - mates rates!"

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#112

Post by prawn »

jazoom wrote: post #68
imron wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When this first hit the news a few months back, Musk said they'd do it on 90 days or it'd be free. That's a pretty big incentive to get it done quickly.

Now it's 100 days or free.

No, it was always 100 days or free.

"Tesla will get the system installed and working 100 days from contract signature or it is free. That serious enough for you?"

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/840032197637685249

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#113

Post by prawn »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #91
nl wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a South Australian, I'm (very!!) happy to trade a few tax dollars for much lower power prices. The extra tax is more than made up for in savings. On this particular topic, the South Australian government's interests and mine are precisely aligned: We are both getting screwed over by power generators exploiting the intermittent nature of renewables to make bigger profits. Did you know they deliberately keep gas pea…

happy to trade a few tax dollars for much lower power prices That's optimistic . I guarantee you will be paying more for electricity generation because of this battery. There's no way the incumbents would allow this thing to be connected to the grid if there wasn't a dollar (quite a few dollars) in it for them. Giving money and power to politicians is like giving car keys and whiskey to teenage boys. Regards, former…

Who shouldn't get the money and power? The incumbent power generators or the politicians?

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#114

Post by calafrax »

eyeareque wrote: post #29
coolguy4 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Australia is the 5th most populous Australian state, out of 6 total states in Australia. It has had a left-leaning government in power for the past 15 years. South Australia has a lot of mineral resources and a very large land area but it is mainly desert. Since renewable energy is cool with left-leaning governments, South Australia has built a lot of wind farms. The wind farms are heavily subsdised by the gove…

You're forgetting about the cost on the environment that coal burning power plants create. No one ever takes the damage of our environment into consideration of how much something really costs us. Of course there is renewable power environment cost as well, batteries aren't very green to produce or dispose of. But over all, we are better off by not burning coal even if there are more upfront costs.

What about the environmental costs of these batteries? Have reserves been made for the cost of safe disposal?

If you say that one technology is environmentally destructive and must be replaced but never bother to evaluate whether or not the replacement is actually better this just makes things worse.

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#115

Post by zyngaro »

So basically we are transitioning from a fossil energy based world to lithium based one. Why does media never talk about the sustainability of build lithium ion batteries at large scale? Have the recycling problem been sorted out (I have a couple of lithium ion batteries and I don't know what to do about them) I also heard that lithium is very very scarce on Earth.

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#116

Post by calafrax »

cameldrv wrote: post #11

The article, of course, is guilty of exactly what it accuses its opponents of -- truthiness. They say that this is affordable, and then don't even say how much it costs! He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense [1] [1] http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/

The problems with this article are legion but what I want to know is what the real contract terms were?

I know Musk promised the 100-days or free thing, which makes a nice headline, but I really doubt that is what the actual contract says.

I may be wrong but would be very interested to know.

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#117

Post by pavlov »

zyngaro wrote: post #115

So basically we are transitioning from a fossil energy based world to lithium based one. Why does media never talk about the sustainability of build lithium ion batteries at large scale? Have the recycling problem been sorted out (I have a couple of lithium ion batteries and I don't know what to do about them) I also heard that lithium is very very scarce on Earth.

Seems like there is plenty of lithium, but mines are not keeping up with demand. Here's an interesting story from FT about Chile's lithium mines, with pictures:

https://www.ft.com/content/cde8f984-43c7-11e6-b22f-79eb4891c...

(You may need to Google for the title to bypass paywall: "Lithium: Chile’s buried treasure")

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#118

Post by calafrax »

zyngaro wrote: post #115

So basically we are transitioning from a fossil energy based world to lithium based one. Why does media never talk about the sustainability of build lithium ion batteries at large scale? Have the recycling problem been sorted out (I have a couple of lithium ion batteries and I don't know what to do about them) I also heard that lithium is very very scarce on Earth.

What are you a denier? Once we have consensus that means we shut off debate and stop doing economic analysis. Get with the program buddy.

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#119

Post by aphextron »

Can anyone comment more generally on using lithium ion batteries for grid scale storage? It seems nonsensical to me.

Lithium makes sense for cars where power density is essential. But with grid scale storage, there are so many drawbacks, including

1.) High fixed cost vs. other batteries

2.) Degradation from dendrite growth

3.) Need for constant cooling

4.) Possibility of catastrophic failure in case of short circuiting

In contrast something like Zinc-Bromine flow batteries have unlimited cycling with zero loss of energy storage, and are inherently composed of fire retardant materials, making them impossible to catch fire or explode [0]. The trade off is in energy density, but that shouldn't be an issue for fixed grid-scale deployments.

This story feels like forcing a solution with the power of good marketing, not solid engineering.

[0] http://redflow.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Garth-Corey-as...

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#120

Post by zik »

nl wrote: post #48
sanxiyn wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What enormous transmission cost? Total transmission loss of Australia is 5% (2014). I already said battery switches faster. You are simply repeating what I said.

The Snowy Mountain scheme is around 1500km from Adelaide. It might help in the Eastern States, but transmission losses are significant over that distance, and in the Eastern States they haven't had the power problems yet.

Pumped hydro storage is also inefficient - about 20% losses.
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