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Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

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Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#121

Post by dang »

melling wrote: post #117
dang wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9376627 as off-topic.

My question was not off-topic. I simply asked for some evidence to support his claim. I explained why I thought he was wrong.

That part of your comment wasn't off-topic, but the part about "chest-beating" was, and it provoked a wildly off-topic digression. Had you followed the HN guidelines and limited your comment to its substantive and civil portion, I don't believe that would have happened.

Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#122

Post by melling »

dang wrote: post #121
melling wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My question was not off-topic. I simply asked for some evidence to support his claim. I explained why I thought he was wrong.

That part of your comment wasn't off-topic, but the part about "chest-beating" was, and it provoked a wildly off-topic digression. Had you followed the HN guidelines and limited your comment to its substantive and civil portion, I don't believe that would have happened.

One little jab in the entire thread by me. Not mean spirited but an accurate description of what people do.

All in all, I thought I was quite patient and I explained why I thought we can, and should try, to have more intelligent discussions on HN. I'm afraid that I didn't convince the other guy.

"HN comments sections cannot be more than superficial"

Anyway, I'm sure the moderators will figure it out before we become TIL on Reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/32m5t5/til_ew...

Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#123

Post by diminoten »

oldmanjay wrote: post #104
diminoten wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you think I'm speaking to you as an authority figure?

I'm not a part of this conversation but I was assuming you were playing the role of the condescending nerd who tells other people how to think. was I wrong?

If ever I was, you just took over.

Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#124

Post by ridgeguy »

cwal37 wrote: post #34

It stands out to me that pumped storage only gets a passing mention. We've had that as a proven energy storage technology for decades. People in the industry love to talk about it and file FERC applications for preliminary permits on the same sites over and over (I would know, I've had to read nearly all of them over the last year at work), but it's never deployed at the scale people expected. It'll be interesting to…

Pumped hydro works very well. Its main issue is that the enabling favorable combination of terrain (adjacent lakes or potential lakes at differing heights) and water supply aren't common, so cost-effective sites are restricted.

Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#125

Post by ridgeguy »

afarrell wrote: post #96
exelius wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually; cheap storage makes the argument for nuclear energy even better. Nuclear is very bad at responding to demand because it can take weeks or months to restart a nuclear reactor. Under any scenario, you're going to need some kind of power grid. That grid is going to have a non-zero "base" load as batteries charge, etc. Nuclear is perfect for generating this base load - it's reliable, clean and not subject to th…

The problem for nuclear is that with the way the bulk electricity market works, shaving off the peaks could hurt the ROI of building a new nuclear plant significantly. In New York and New England, suppliers bid in how much power they are willing to supply at a given price, the market operator runs a giant LP solver over the bids and transmission constraints between locations in order to satisfy demand in each locatio…

My understanding is that nuclear power is used to serve base load, which is the demand that isn't subject to significant variation. This allows generator owners to run nuclear generators at their cost-effective maximum output.

It's true that there is great variation in electricity pricing, with peak shaving and other so-called "ancillary services" bringing as much as 100X as high a price as base rate (for a short period of time). Nuke generators aren't capable of rapid load following, reactive power correction, voltage support, or other fast-response services that bring premium power prices.

Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#126

Post by usrusr »

jimmcslim wrote: post #118
greggyb wrote: post #67

If there's a legitimate arbitrage opportunity for individual homeowners to buy a battery and charge it overnight to cover peak costs, there should be an even stronger case for energy companies to buy larger batteries, install them in low-land-cost areas, and do the thing themselves. If these peak plants are so expensive, then a major utility can save money using batteries rather than peak plants. The cost should be l…

> but for out-of-city travel (i.e. a trip where you would need to charge before you get to your destination), you want the equivalent of a gas station, which is 1-10 minutes for a stop, not 45+. I appreciate that 'time is money' and people want to get where they are going sooner rather than later... but I wonder if there are social benefits from a transport infrastructure that requires us to stop for 45 minutes to re…

> but I wonder if there are social > benefits from a transport infrastructure > that requires us to stop for 45 minutes > to recharge, not just the car but the > body?

Would they be able to outweigh the social benefits (and reduced energy use) of traveling 45 minutes slower?

Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#127

Post by ridgeguy »

driverdan wrote: post #76
URSpider94 wrote: post #69

One problem that will surface is that the cost of our transmission infrastructure will have to be covered, one way or the other. Currently, with net metering, customers are able to arbitrage power at the retail price, while effectively making use of the grid for both pushing and pulling load. This would be like flying a round-trip from San Jose to Tokyo and back to SFO, and claiming that you only owe the airline for…

I think you misunderstood something in this article. The only stored power that would be on the grid would be from the power companies themselves, not the end users. End users wouldn't resell the power, they'd use it themselves.

The growth of distributed solar + storage (i.e., zillions of residences having 10kW arrays and 25kWhr storage) is accelerating. Projections I've seen suggest that this distributed storage (which doesn't belong to the power companies) will be far larger than utility-scale storage such as discussed in the article. This presents real challenges in how to control that distributed storage and pay its owners for storage-related grid services.

Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#128

Post by ridgeguy »

brownbat wrote: post #109
teamonkey wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That uses more-or-less the same principle as pumped-storage hydroelectricity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity

Except it takes a really big train to weigh as much as a lake. Pumped hydro is unbelievable. Tour a pumped hydro facility if you ever get the chance, and ask about the economics. They're buying a dollar of energy at night in Spring and selling it on hot summer days for something like five hundred. (Probably not quite that much, but it was a crazy ratio, to the point where efficiency barely matters - also, free energy…

It actually can be that price multiple. Pumped hydro is one of those fast response storage technologies that can supply power for high price premium ancillary services (transient supply/load matching, peak shaving, etc.).

Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#129

Post by avn2109 »

stickfigure wrote: post #101
pixl97 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the other poster said, lightning can be dealt with, but I'm very glad I don't have your problem. You are dealing with the worst possible combinations of landscape and expense. My honest answer is you need a specialist with the proper testing equipment measure the resistance to earth at your location. If it is very high you will likely need deep holes dug (reading about one mountain top location that needed 600'…

I'm certain there's a perfectly logical answer to this question, but I couldn't find it in 5 minutes of googling: Why can't the ocean be used as ground?

I too would like to know this.

Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#130

Post by ridgeguy »

notlisted wrote: post #103

Silly question perhaps… If alternative energy sources in combination with batteries increase independence from those who supply it, and reduced demand during peak times allows rates to fall, isn't there a point where investments in infrastructure (or maintenance thereof) will stop being profitable, etc etc.

Yes. This is the grid owners' nightmare at the moment. Their old business model is rapidly dissolving as the price of solar + storage falls ever further and more electricity users essentially disconnect from buying grid power. That revenue loss hits grid maintenance expenditures directly.
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