Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
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Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
#2Is this like a future dated article or something? Seems it is discussing events that may happen in 2023.
Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
#3Why lithium ion batteries — are they much cheaper to make than new gravitational potential (i.e. hydroelectric) storage systems?
Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
#4(Los Angeles deal) would provide 7% of the city's electricity beginning in 2023 at a cost of 1.997 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) for the solar power and 1.3 cents per kWh for the battery.
So 3.297 cents per kwh. That's on par with large hydro like Tacoma Power Park. I'm getting 11 cents per kwh for my solar currently in the midwest.
Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
#5Why lithium ion batteries — are they much cheaper to make than new gravitational potential (i.e. hydroelectric) storage systems?
Hydro can be extremely disruptive to ecosystems, and you also need a suitable site for it. It's very situational, from what I understand.
Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
#6Why lithium ion batteries — are they much cheaper to make than new gravitational potential (i.e. hydroelectric) storage systems?
No moving parts, and finding free water for pumped storage is going to be hard in California.
Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
#7$0.02/Kwh for the solar part is pretty good.
A reasonable short-term goal: get 100% of US peak air conditioning load south of 37° N on solar. That's the line from the Virginia/North Carolina border west to central California.
Peak solar power output and peak air conditioning load line up pretty well, so that doesn't need storage. Storage is more of an issue for wind, which varies about 4:1 over a day over large areas and doesn't match load at all.
Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
#8Why lithium ion batteries — are they much cheaper to make than new gravitational potential (i.e. hydroelectric) storage systems?
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Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
#9Why lithium ion batteries — are they much cheaper to make than new gravitational potential (i.e. hydroelectric) storage systems?
Of course. You would have to build a generator. You would need to lay the lines from your hydroelectric source, which could extend many, many miles. And you'd need step down transformers for the last mile.
Lipo would supply DC power directly from within your neighborhood.
Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid
#10I wonder what the wider economic effect will be if the price of solar continues to improve and the fossil fuel industry can't find a way to remain competitive. Since some places are far more suitable for solar power generation than others, will those areas end up with a significant advantage in the cost of living? Could that in turn lead to a major migration of people and economic activity to those areas?