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Falling lithium-ion battery prices to drive rapid storage uptake

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Re: Falling lithium-ion battery prices to drive rapid storage uptake

#131

Post by hwillis »

petra wrote: post #125
hwillis wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The powerwalls and powerpacks use a different chemistry from the cars, and are still using the 18650 size going forward. It's trivially easy to change the size of cylindrical batteries. Li-ion batteries are essentially a tape, and the second to last step of production is to roll the tape up and insert it into the battery. Different cells just require different cans and widths of tape.

What about a different chemistry , like Li-Sulfur ? how big of a change the gigafactory will require ?

Most likely very little. Sulfur cathodes would just be deposited on the tape like any other cathode, and the gigafactory could freely switch to any other standard chemistry after some setup time and adjustments. More radical (and also much less likely) changes would have bigger impacts. Lithium metal batteries would probably require replacing some significant machinery. Solid electrolyte or ceramic batteries could need almost an entirely new production line. Metal air batteries would be almost completely incompatable.

Realistically, there are probably no changes coming in the next 30 years that will require rebuilding anything significant.

Re: Falling lithium-ion battery prices to drive rapid storage uptake

#132

Post by ScottBurson »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #86
epistasis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your instincts would be wrong on this one. This is a technical article, that talks about all the right things for grid storage: value stacking, $/kWh (note the h), various install locations such as behind-the-meter, etc. They know what they are talking about. Currently, grid discussions happen mostly in the MW or GW space. Maximum instantaneous discharge speed is pretty much the most important characteristic for stor…

> They know what they are talking about. In this article, which is what we're discussing here, it is very clearly either a typo, or it's some journalist spouting off above their pay grade.

I had the same initial reaction, but I think epistasis is probably right.

This is the best reason why they should quote both numbers: so we can be sure they haven't gotten confused and quoted energy as watts.

Re: Falling lithium-ion battery prices to drive rapid storage uptake

#133

Post by woodandsteel »

gozur88 wrote: post #98
the8472 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle redox flow batteries should offer better scaling properties for stationary storage, but Li batteries have a process advantage of several years. So the picture might change down the road as long as there is still enough money flowing into alternative research.

I wonder. One of the reasons internal combustion has lasted so long is great boatloads of cash get showered on the technology trying to eke out that last 0.2% of efficiency, and when that's the situation eventually someone has a bright idea that makes a bigger difference. If lithium ends up with the same advantage, other technologies that ought to be better may end up lagging even in the long term.

I see what you are saying. But maybe some big company like Panasonic or Seimens will decide to put the needed bucks into flow batteries. Or maybe China will do what it is doing with PV's and decide to push them hard.

Re: Falling lithium-ion battery prices to drive rapid storage uptake

#134

Post by michaeloblak »

thescriptkiddie wrote: post #126
ChuckMcM wrote: post #35

I wonder how much of this is simply the Gigafactory coming online at full production + others trying to keep their factories running. If you look at Tesla's plan to be making 10,000 model 3's a week, with a nominal 90 kWh battery in each that is 900 MWh a week of capacity or 46 GWh capacity a year. But it is all tied up in cars of course[1]. The power companies have been screwing around with rate plans to keep grid-t…

Utilities are actually planning on using parked electric cars for storage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid

I don't know why, but this somehow reminds me an excellent paper[1] by lcamtuf about parasitic data storage (keeping data "on the cable").

[1] http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/juggling_with_packets.txt

Re: Falling lithium-ion battery prices to drive rapid storage uptake

#135

Post by cwkoss »

comicjk wrote: post #38

Using lithium-ion batteries for stationary storage is interesting because their original advantage was all about light weight (lithium is the lightest metal element). Now, it seems the development effort devoted to lithium-ion has paid off so well that they are the best OVERALL battery solution. The single-minded effort we put into cell phones and cars is so strong that it now reaches all the way to homes and the gri…

I've been watching Joel Salatin's talks on his farming methods. Been surprised to hear that there is a huge amount of 'low tech' innovation occurring in farming within the past 50ish years because long-used materials and parts that were historically expensive to produce are now order(s) of magnitude cheaper.

- His mobile chicken coops need to be lightweight. Before thin-bladed sawmills, milling lumber to be smaller than ~2" was cost prohibitive as each cut had a 0.25" kerf. Making 1"x1" planks would mean nearly half of the wood goes into the waste pile!

- Cheap electric fences allow pastured hog farming to be mobile. Pigs will wreck strong fences, but a lightweight deterrent allows quick placement and removal.

Re: Falling lithium-ion battery prices to drive rapid storage uptake

#136

Post by scythe »

hwillis wrote: post #127
nabla9 wrote: post #2

$200/kWh by 2019. Assuming that households consume between 30 kWh and 15 kWh electricity daily on average and you want to have storage capacity for 1/3 of daily electricity consumption to get wind or solar energy work, you need 10-5 kWh per household. That's $2000 - $1000 per household. If that battery lasts 10 years, its $200 - $100 per year. It's workable and scales if we are able to reuse lithium. When does that h…

>It's workable and scales if we are able to reuse lithium. When does that happen? (recycling is not reuse) I assume you mean reuse is not recycling ie using old batteries as lower-capacity storage is not workable indefinitely. First off the most pressing issue is that there is no practical replacement for cobalt in many li-ion applications. Chemistries without cobalt, like lithium titanate or iron phosphate, have a p…

Sulfur beats cobalt on energy density by a significant margin; its theoretical specific energy is 5x as large, although the chemistry is much more complex: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hong-Jie_Peng/publicati...

There is one company in Colorado making Li-S batteries at small scale: http://www.solidpowerbattery.com/

Re: Falling lithium-ion battery prices to drive rapid storage uptake

#137

Post by aphextron »

wongarsu wrote: post #43
comicjk wrote: post #38

Using lithium-ion batteries for stationary storage is interesting because their original advantage was all about light weight (lithium is the lightest metal element). Now, it seems the development effort devoted to lithium-ion has paid off so well that they are the best OVERALL battery solution. The single-minded effort we put into cell phones and cars is so strong that it now reaches all the way to homes and the gri…

In the last three decades battery technology was mostly about powering small, lightweight gadgets. Now that there's massive amounts of money to be made with car batteries and grid-level storage, I certainly expect some great battery technologies that focus on that in the next decade or two. That's also why I don't care about all these fears about us not having enough lithium: nobody is going to power the world on lit…

There is no possibility of ever running out of lithium for battery production. It is an extremely common element, and the actual lithium makes up about 3% of a LiPo cell by mass.

Re: Falling lithium-ion battery prices to drive rapid storage uptake

#138

Post by [deleted] »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #118
wongarsu wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They degrade extremely quickly in the usage pattern of a typical consumer device (alternating between full charge and full discharge). They last fairly long if you keep them between 30% and 80% charge. It's not the most long-lasting technology, but we replace most infrastructure every 20-years already. A 10 year lifetime wouldn't be that bad.

> They last fairly long if you keep them between 30% and 80% charge wait. does that mean that, effectively, for a careful Tesla owner seeking to maximize battery life, most of the time her practical range will be roughly 70% of the stated value?

[deleted]

Re: Falling lithium-ion battery prices to drive rapid storage uptake

#139

Post by aphextron »

dangoor wrote: post #17
mavhc wrote: post #12

I paid $354/kWh last month for 24kWh of batteries (inc 20% tax), and I got a free car that goes around it

What kind of electric car costs $8500? Used Leaf?

I just bought a 2011 Leaf with 40k miles in mint condition for $5,000. They are insanely cheap right now, and amazing cars if the range works for you (I get about 60-70 miles on mine). Also with the free quick chargers everywhere in the Bay Area I literally drive for the cost of car insurance now. I think it's just a combination of fear from the consumers and lack of knowledge on used dealers part combined that has left these things dirt cheap.
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