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The rise of batteries in six charts

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Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#131

Post by sandworm101 »

candiddevmike wrote: post #125
sandworm101 wrote: post #123

Take 25% of the money spend on EV batteries and instead spend it on domestic solar panels. I cannot stand the smugness of people who will pay $$,$$$ for a car but won't spend $,$$$ on the thing to make power for that car. Even batteries. The net carbon saved by in-home battery+solar is far more than putting batteries in the family car. The car runs a few hours a day. A total off-grid solar+batteries domestic system s…

From my interaction with local utilities/electrical companies, they _hate_ domestic solar. They'll do everything in their power to stonewall you getting them installed and make it seem like a useless/expensive option.

Then ditch the local connection and go with off-grid solar. These days, a totally off-grid solution is sometimes the cheaper option. Panels are cheap. Batteries are cheap. Interest rates are cheap. And no monthly minimums.

I'm sitting in a house right now, streaming top gear on a 50-inch tv, completely off-grid.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#132

Post by cogman10 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #123

Take 25% of the money spend on EV batteries and instead spend it on domestic solar panels. I cannot stand the smugness of people who will pay $$,$$$ for a car but won't spend $,$$$ on the thing to make power for that car. Even batteries. The net carbon saved by in-home battery+solar is far more than putting batteries in the family car. The car runs a few hours a day. A total off-grid solar+batteries domestic system s…

Batteries are a required part of the transition to pure renewables. When demand for EVs drops low enough you can bet grid operators will be in line to soak up the cheap batteries.

Further, V2G/H is more than likely to be a thing in the near future further putting the EV batteries to work stabilizing the grid.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#133

Post by SECProto »

sandworm101 wrote: post #123

Take 25% of the money spend on EV batteries and instead spend it on domestic solar panels. I cannot stand the smugness of people who will pay $$,$$$ for a car but won't spend $,$$$ on the thing to make power for that car. Even batteries. The net carbon saved by in-home battery+solar is far more than putting batteries in the family car. The car runs a few hours a day. A total off-grid solar+batteries domestic system s…

Single digit thousands of solar panels might reduce emissions more in your case, but it certainly wouldn't in mine (grid here has very low gCO2/kWh)

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#134

Post by cogman10 »

tonymet wrote: post #104
Tade0 wrote: post #67

Regarding price, leading manufacturers are already selling at a price below what was always understood as the point where EVs win in terms of economics: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/01/ev-lfp-battery-price-w... The recent price war in China is a testament to that.

why aren't consumers seeing this price yet?

Demand far outstrips manufacturing capacity at the moment.

For batteries not put in EVs a slightly lower price will get them installed in grid storage solutions.

Consumers will be the last to see lower prices while demand outpaces supply.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#135

Post by usefulcat »

radium3d wrote: post #77
aresant wrote: post #4

This is all very encouraging and in particular batteries role in solar Two interesting data points to that end 1) The "duck curve" for CA is almost neutral - eg the timing imbalance between peak demand and solar power generation - battery utilization is the most straightforward solution here - https://twitter.com/baker_edmund/status/1750644294673748366 2) There has been a massive decline in rooftop solar applications…

It's super cool you can watch California's grid level batteries "breathe" every day here, https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html#sectio... Yesterday we peaked out at 3GW discharging rate, and 4GW charging rate. We are plowing ahead in the transition to utilizing all of our excess solar! We peak at 25GW expected today, so we have a little ways to go but it's incredible how far and how fast they're repla…

Kind of unrelated, but I'm wondering why TX uses so much more electricity than CA. Right now (afternoon of 1/26) happens to be a good time to compare:

-- Temperatures are mild throughout most of TX (50s and 60s F); temps in CA are similar, perhaps a bit warmer;

-- It's roughly mid-day in both places (3PM TX, 1PM CA);

-- TX has a population of ~30M, CA has ~39M

..yet somehow right now TX is consuming ~47GW (per ercot) while CA is only consuming ~23.5GW (per caiso). What gives?

ERCOT: https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#136

Post by 1970-01-01 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #123

Take 25% of the money spend on EV batteries and instead spend it on domestic solar panels. I cannot stand the smugness of people who will pay $$,$$$ for a car but won't spend $,$$$ on the thing to make power for that car. Even batteries. The net carbon saved by in-home battery+solar is far more than putting batteries in the family car. The car runs a few hours a day. A total off-grid solar+batteries domestic system s…

Domestic solar isn't as efficient as solar power plants. If we took this 25% and instead built solar farms, we would be farther ahead. Domestic battery power plants do make sense however.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#137

Post by breischl »

stcredzero wrote: post #112
Terr_ wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the point where EVs win in terms of economics If ubiquitous and cheap charging infrastructure is not being priced in, which is still a blocker for many. For example, I cannot reasonably run lengths of 110v extension cords down the block to charge a car overnight, and acquiring my own house with a garage is dramatically more expensive than any fuel savings. :p

I cannot reasonably run lengths of 110v extension cords down the block to charge a car overnight I used to run extension cords out of windows and across the sidewalk to charge a Fiat 500e.

Works if you live in a first-floor, street-facing unit and can reliably park in front of it. Otherwise it can be tough.

It's unfortunate that EVs make the most immediate sense in high-density urban settings, but those same settings have lots of people who can't use the simple kinds of charging infrastructure (eg, Level 1/2 chargers).

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#138

Post by epistasis »

LUmBULtERA wrote: post #128
epistasis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument ignores the cost of transmission and distribution, which are higher costs than the generation itself. And as electricity prices are driven down even further, T&D will come to dominate over energy generation costs. Few models account for this, but Christopher Clack made one, and the lowest cost energy path was a small amount of investment in distribution now, paired with massive deployment of solar on ho…

Unless every home is completely off the grid, you’re going to need to pay for most or the majority of that transmission and distribution anyway. Peak winter and summer I also would imagine many or most residential deployments aren’t going to cover their own need, unless they’re incredibly over built with massive batteries. In any case, I should check out your Christopher Clack reference.

The modeling is a few years old now, but here's a podcast episode diving into details:

https://xenetwork.org/ets/episodes/episode-146-why-local-sol...

(And of course, perhaps one modeler can get it wrong. But over here in California where the majority of our sky high electricity cost is from T&D, it definitet feels very true. And last national stats I saw had T&D as higher than generation costs)

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#139

Post by breischl »

cogman10 wrote: post #132
sandworm101 wrote: post #123

Take 25% of the money spend on EV batteries and instead spend it on domestic solar panels. I cannot stand the smugness of people who will pay $$,$$$ for a car but won't spend $,$$$ on the thing to make power for that car. Even batteries. The net carbon saved by in-home battery+solar is far more than putting batteries in the family car. The car runs a few hours a day. A total off-grid solar+batteries domestic system s…

Batteries are a required part of the transition to pure renewables. When demand for EVs drops low enough you can bet grid operators will be in line to soak up the cheap batteries. Further, V2G/H is more than likely to be a thing in the near future further putting the EV batteries to work stabilizing the grid.

>V2G/H is more than likely to be a thing in the near future further putting the EV batteries to work stabilizing the grid.

Yes. Even before we get to full V2G, managed charging provides a helpful degree of flexibility.

An EV is a giant battery (several times the size of a Tesla PowerWall, for example) that happens to move sometimes. The battery can be used for other things when the car isn't moving - and it will be.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#140

Post by PaulHoule »

jeffbee wrote: post #102
PaulHoule wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long haul yes, but it's a little known story that regional airlines are on the edge of disaster because: (1) they can't find pilots, (2) manufacturers have stopped making the 50-seat jets that are the mainstay of that business. Airports like ITH are already at the top of the "regional development problems" in third-tier cities and it is not so clear they're going to be able to have service in 20 years the way things…

Perhaps I am missing your broader point, but the fact that ITH exists and only has scheduled service to New York is a bit ridiculous. That should be a high-speed rail route that takes you from city center to center, if America intends to become a developed nation.

God it's gotten worse. Last time I looked they had flights to PHL and DTW.

As it is now there is fierce competition for bus service from Ithaca to NYC (budget to various grades of premium) and I find it almost unimaginable that I'd fly to NYC to get to NYC because flying to JFK or atrocious EWR (never once made a transfer at EWR that didn't involve re-entering the secure zone) wouldn't save time to get to Midtown.

If you try to take the bus in the other direction you find you can't get from here to there. A friend of mine who used to ride the bus through Canada to get to the Detroit suburbs now takes the bus up to Syracuse, then takes Amtrak and gets out at 4am. On the way back one time there was no room on the bus although he paid for a ticket ahead of time.

The real significance of the regional airport is that it connects to a hub that goes everywhere. As it is if I have to fly somewhere I'll probably have to go up to SYR where at least I can fly on Jetblue and know I'm flying on an Airbus.

ITH used to get

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Canada_Dash_8

which I really enjoyed flying in, but they got replaced with 50-seat regional jets because regional jets are less likely to break down at a small airport requiring a crew to travel two hours to repair them.

As it is, academics at Cornell and Ithaca College will struggle to bring in speakers and it's just one more bit of "stave the countryside" that will drive knowledge workers to go to blue cities where their votes don't count -- it's how you hand the next election to a Demagogue.

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