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Energy Storage Investments Boom as Battery Costs Halve in the Next Decade

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Re: Energy Storage Investments Boom as Battery Costs Halve in the Next Decade

#32
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What percentage of our global storage needs do you believe are "long term" in this dichotomy? Is this at the "electric cars can't do my daily commute" or "electric cars can't tow my boat 600 miles without stopping, once a year" stage? Seems like most of the world just needs solar to last until the next day with a decent chunk of that power needed immediately after the sun sets and any wind power available could get s…

Short term = diurnal Long term = weeks to seasonal Batteries, especially that sort of cheaper battery, would be great for diurnal load leveling. Long term storage is probably more hydrogen and mass thermal storage. The tradeoff would be capital cost per unit stored energy vs. efficiency. Storage competes with and complements two other approaches: overinstallation of generation capacity w. curtailment, and dispatchabl…

Methanol is an alternative to hydrogen. With current technologies it is less efficient to produce it and then generate electricity in fuel cells, but storing it is trivial.

Re: Energy Storage Investments Boom as Battery Costs Halve in the Next Decade

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What percentage of our global storage needs do you believe are "long term" in this dichotomy? Solar output in the UK varies substantially between summer and winter [1] - as does demand for heating. As a Brit with solar panels, it would be super neat if I could generate power during the summer, store it for 6 months, and use it for heating during winter. That would reduce my direct carbon emissions relative to the sta…

For this, wouldn't it be better to pump water onto the top of a bunch of mountains in Wales? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station , but more.

That's the point, isn't it? Batteries are not a panacea for energy storage needs, even with a doubling of their capacity.

Re: Energy Storage Investments Boom as Battery Costs Halve in the Next Decade

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short term solution: natural gas peaker plants could be repurposed to provide power during lulls in production (better than most fossil fuels, but very expensive and still produce greenhouse gases, so can't be the solution for long) Medium term solution: long-distance transmission, overprovision, and even more grid-scale storage (whole continents don't get cloudy & calm at once for long periods of time) Potential lon…

Wont introducing net energy to the earth add to the warming?

Not substantially. The issue is that energy that would normally escape does not.

Re: Energy Storage Investments Boom as Battery Costs Halve in the Next Decade

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What percentage of our global storage needs do you believe are "long term" in this dichotomy? Is this at the "electric cars can't do my daily commute" or "electric cars can't tow my boat 600 miles without stopping, once a year" stage? Seems like most of the world just needs solar to last until the next day with a decent chunk of that power needed immediately after the sun sets and any wind power available could get s…

What percentage of our global storage needs do you believe are "long term" in this dichotomy? Solar output in the UK varies substantially between summer and winter [1] - as does demand for heating. As a Brit with solar panels, it would be super neat if I could generate power during the summer, store it for 6 months, and use it for heating during winter. That would reduce my direct carbon emissions relative to the sta…

Another "paradigm" is that full and empty batteries are shipped between regions by boat or truck as needed instead of just waiting 6 months for the planet to move through the cosmos.

Re: Energy Storage Investments Boom as Battery Costs Halve in the Next Decade

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What percentage of our global storage needs do you believe are "long term" in this dichotomy? Solar output in the UK varies substantially between summer and winter [1] - as does demand for heating. As a Brit with solar panels, it would be super neat if I could generate power during the summer, store it for 6 months, and use it for heating during winter. That would reduce my direct carbon emissions relative to the sta…

For this, wouldn't it be better to pump water onto the top of a bunch of mountains in Wales? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station , but more.

Pumped water does not scale well, there are only so many mountain valleys to block. And I'd rather keep a few in a somewhat natural state (a magic "no more mountain valleys in exchange for instantly solved climate change" would be attractive nonetheless, even though I write this from a very nice, unblocked mountain valley).

But when your concern is just seasonal storage for heating, you don't need pumped storage. Just great water in a big, isolated tank, it's not even new technology. The surface per volume shrinks the bigger the system, so very large tanks can have quite nice loss numbers.

Re: Energy Storage Investments Boom as Battery Costs Halve in the Next Decade

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What percentage of our global storage needs do you believe are "long term" in this dichotomy? Is this at the "electric cars can't do my daily commute" or "electric cars can't tow my boat 600 miles without stopping, once a year" stage? Seems like most of the world just needs solar to last until the next day with a decent chunk of that power needed immediately after the sun sets and any wind power available could get s…

What percentage of our global storage needs do you believe are "long term" in this dichotomy? Solar output in the UK varies substantially between summer and winter [1] - as does demand for heating. As a Brit with solar panels, it would be super neat if I could generate power during the summer, store it for 6 months, and use it for heating during winter. That would reduce my direct carbon emissions relative to the sta…

The entire UK energy use is about 2% of the world total. So I'm guessing that the storage needs of your specific (and oddly non-grid connected) home is only a small fraction of that and doesn't affect the larger, global, back of the envelope figure I'm looking for.

Using numbers to quantify the situation is part of why I'm asking, asking (and answering) the right questions so we don't get silly answers is the other important part though.

Re: Energy Storage Investments Boom as Battery Costs Halve in the Next Decade

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short term solution: natural gas peaker plants could be repurposed to provide power during lulls in production (better than most fossil fuels, but very expensive and still produce greenhouse gases, so can't be the solution for long) Medium term solution: long-distance transmission, overprovision, and even more grid-scale storage (whole continents don't get cloudy & calm at once for long periods of time) Potential lon…

Wont introducing net energy to the earth add to the warming?

I may be incorrect, but space based solar would catch energy that would reach the earth anyway, basically shading us. So it would probably be more or less adding the same energy, but sending it to the ground rather than dispersing some in the stratosphere.

Re: Energy Storage Investments Boom as Battery Costs Halve in the Next Decade

#39
post #31

No companies listed in article - anyone have a list of companies developing new battery technology? Been something I've tried researching in the past with little luck

Maxwell, now owned by Tesla. I think Tesla will become a big player in the battery tech space

Re: Energy Storage Investments Boom as Battery Costs Halve in the Next Decade

#40
post #31

No companies listed in article - anyone have a list of companies developing new battery technology? Been something I've tried researching in the past with little luck

Maybe start here?

http://energystorage.org/membership/members

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