Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by diminoten » Thu, Apr 16, 2015, 1:43 AM UTC

escape_goat wrote: post #220

diminoten wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've taken what I wrote and pushed it much further than I did. If you re-read what I've written, I'm not nearly as extreme as you present. Your argument hinges on me being extreme in my position, when in actuality I am not. I have not said anything nearly as absolute as you've implied. For example, I don't believe me using the words "lazy" or "wasting everyone's time" were an example of what dang refers to as "jabs…

Actually, you used the personal pronoun 'you', which is not used in English to describe an activity, but rather a person. This is unambiguous. To me, your response on this matter indicates that I'm likely to get argumentation in reply to anything I say rather than discussion or honest reflection. This is fine, if one likes argumentation for its own sake, which it is established that you yourself do; I, however, do no…

"You" can also be used as a substitute to "one".

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

#222

Post by bjelkeman-again » Thu, Apr 16, 2015, 2:32 AM UTC

aharonovich wrote: post #170

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live, in Sweden, you can. I purchased shares in a wind power coop. It feeds me all the electricity I need wherever I live in the country, at cost of production. And with interest rates at effective zero here the investment is significantly better than having the money in the bank.

So who is covering the cost of transmitting to power from the wind farm to your city and the cost of distributing it all the way to your home?

I am covering the cost. I pay network charges like everyone else.

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

#223

Post by bjelkeman-again » Thu, Apr 16, 2015, 2:36 AM UTC

patrickk wrote: post #185

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live, in Sweden, you can. I purchased shares in a wind power coop. It feeds me all the electricity I need wherever I live in the country, at cost of production. And with interest rates at effective zero here the investment is significantly better than having the money in the bank.

Interesting. Would you mind posting details? I would like to know more, if it's possible in Germany, expected ROI etc.

I don't have access to the detail at the moment. I'm easy to find so ping me an email as a reminder.

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

#224

Post by ghshephard » Thu, Apr 16, 2015, 4:21 AM UTC

eigenvector wrote: post #212

ghshephard wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company does work in the UK, and we're putting together communications system that will allow the wind generations systems to stop loading the network when the transmission lines get too hot (apparently it's less expensive to shut down the wind power x% of the time, than it is to build new transmission lines). I'm wondering if you have any insight into what happens when our comms system sends a signal to those win…

The primary way that a wind turbine "stops" is by pitching its blades (in some vendors' terminology they call this "pause" because the machine is still connected to the grid just not producing any energy). On modern machines this can reliably be achieved in less than 3 seconds. There is also a mechanical brake that can be applied for emergency stop in 1 second or less. However, mechanical braking is not to be used in…

Ah, that makes perfect sense. It also explains why we have an expectation of a minimum of 15 seconds before we see any response to a command to stop loading the transmission lines, and why the emergency command to the entire wind-farm doesn't occur until all other options have been exhausted.

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

#225

Post by bjelkeman-again » Thu, Apr 16, 2015, 5:38 AM UTC

patrickk wrote: post #185

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live, in Sweden, you can. I purchased shares in a wind power coop. It feeds me all the electricity I need wherever I live in the country, at cost of production. And with interest rates at effective zero here the investment is significantly better than having the money in the bank.

Interesting. Would you mind posting details? I would like to know more, if it's possible in Germany, expected ROI etc.

A quick and dirty calculation: I bought 28 shares from OX2 windpower coop, which entitles me to 28,000 kWh at cost price. Which is what our house/home office uses per year. The price is about €700/share. But I bought shares from the market (people that want to sell their shares), which for some reason are cheaper. I paid about €590/share.

Over the last seven years (I haven't had my shares that long), the saving on cost of electricity, which is tax free, would have been about €960/year. Which is about 5.7% ROI /year. Better than bank rates but worse than index linked stock market investments (I think).

http://www.ox2.com/en/wind-power/private-users/

I don't think OX2 offer electricity in Germany, but maybe in Finland and Poland. Even if they did, it would also depend on how the German regulator has structured how this can work, as well as how taxation on this is structured.

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

#226

Post by aharonovich » Thu, Apr 16, 2015, 8:46 AM UTC

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #222

aharonovich wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So who is covering the cost of transmitting to power from the wind farm to your city and the cost of distributing it all the way to your home?

I am covering the cost. I pay network charges like everyone else.

Wow, this is really a great system. Wish we had that in Israel.

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

#227

Post by hyperbovine » Thu, Apr 16, 2015, 1:11 PM UTC

Lorento wrote: post #161

hyperbovine wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared with the vast devastation of life which is already taking place as a result of climate change? I'll take my chances with the nukes.

Human life? Is it? Remember famines that used to regularly wipe out the peasants in most civilizations? It's been a while since disasters on those scales happened in most countries. Climate change doesn't sound so bad when you compare it to normal life a few centuries ago.

I didn't say anything about humans, but even the most anthropocentric among us can see that killing everything in sight serves to hasten our own demise. And yes, it is. Read the latest predictions, they are really that bad.

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

#228

Post by snowwrestler » Thu, Apr 16, 2015, 3:29 PM UTC

flgb wrote: post #217

snowwrestler wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason Aunty can put solar on her roof is because she has the centralized electrical grid to back her up. Put another way, if Aunty had to choose between roof solar and centralized grid (exclusive of one another), most Aunties will choose the grid because it is much more reliable. That's how we ended up with centralized generation and a grid in the first place--the initial roll out of electricity was highly…

This isn't about grid or no grid. We will have a grid for the foreseeable future. This is a question about how distributed energy generation with battery storage shifts more and more loads to the edges of the grid, and onto private networks. And then, relating to back to the question of whether nuclear is compatible with renewable energy, the question becomes how does this trend affect what technologies make the most…

My point is that all electricity markets, at least in the U.S., will be highly regulated and centrally planned for the foreseeable future, because customers absolutely expect the grid to meet 100% of their needs no matter what happens.

More generation might move to the edges, but that is simply a factor that will be taken into account by the regulation and central planning.

There has to be central generating to meet demand that local generating fails to meet; but the choice of fuel source doesn't have any implications for "free market" concerns. Electricity is not a free market. For example, net metering is only an option for home solar because a federal law says it must be. In a free market, the central electricity utility could simply decline to purchase from edge generators. Or decline to connect home solar people to the grid at all.

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

#229

Post by fennecfoxen » Thu, Apr 16, 2015, 7:08 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #216

fennecfoxen wrote: post #2

The other reason energy storage could get big in the next several years is an elevated risk of blackouts due to aggressive retirement of coal-fired power plants -- blackouts like the one in Washington last week that shut down several government agencies (e.g. the Department of Energy ) and which was probably related to the shutdown of the Potomac River Generating Station.

That plant stopped generating in 2012, so I'm not seeing the connection to last week's power outage.

The plant had peak-load units which would have been spun up, if they still existed. (Alternatively, if the grid had lots of energy-storage devices around, it would have used those instead.)

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

#230

Post by MichaelApproved » Fri, Apr 17, 2015, 12:10 AM UTC

wstrange wrote: post #114

MichaelApproved wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans will always make mistakes, even within the design process. Nuclear is a dangerous technology to make a mistake with. Diablo Canyon Power Plant was partially built backwards, by mistake. It's absurd. The company updated its plans and added structural supports designed to reinforce stability in case of earthquake. In September 1981, PG&E discovered that a single set of blueprints was used for these structural su…

All technologies are dangerous, but nuclear is one of the safest forms of power (deaths per Kwh generated). For the sake of the environment we need to get over our irrational fear of nuclear power.

I just quoted an article where the builders of the power plant built part of the plant backwards. The fear is justified and rational.