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The rise of batteries in six charts

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Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I really don't get how battery manufacturers have have the better part of a decade of with batteries sold pretty much before they've been manufactured and still haven't scaled up to capture that demand

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#242
post #58

> "Enabling the phase-out of fossil fuels" How much hydrocarbon fuel is needed to produce these batteries each year? How much fuel is needed to charge them?

typical hackernews climate thread -- don't ask any important questions

They're bad faith, loaded questions. Be honest, you didn't ask them to learn something, you asked them because you think they're "Gotcha!" questions.

Your responses to answers make this painfully obvious.

If you want to make a point, then just make it. Don't hide behind a bullshit claim that you're just asking questions and then cry about downvotes.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick check shows the 21 billion gallon number you're (not) citing is likely bullshit. https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/environment-v... > David Checkel, a professor at the University of Alberta and an electric car expert, did some back-of-the-napkin math to dispute the claim. Checkel calculated that if each gallon of fuel costs $3, then 21 billion gallons would cost $63 billion annually. If $63 billi…

what's the correct figure? it's easily 100x the output

Good thing they get charged more than 100 times then.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)…

Does home solar usage count on this graph? The electricity never hits the grid so I think it might not. If not California's massive push for home solar could be part of the explanation.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You don't need as much grid capacity if houses have their own generation and storage.

The grid still needs to be built for the worst case - houses aren't going to have days of storage for a week of cold weather with dark clouds

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://electrek.co/2023/10/05/tesla-prices-keep-dropping-mo... they are.

This is Tesla's margins collapsing because of less than forcasted demand for luxury vehicles. Battery prices have dropped much more slowly than the prices of EVs.

They're the only ones who have been mass producing EVs for more than a few years. Sure it's their margins decreasing, but that's because the decreased cost of batteries mean that other car makers were finally offering competitive offerings, in part due to the accumulated decrease in battery price since the original models were released.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need as much grid capacity if houses have their own generation and storage.

The grid still needs to be built for the worst case - houses aren't going to have days of storage for a week of cold weather with dark clouds

Worst case is months. In the depths of winter you need energy captured from the sun during summer. That's a drastic rethinking of the scale of storage.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#248
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"power". This doesn't mean anything. LiFePO4 scales power to energy storage at a rate of about 1:3-1:4. 1GW of "power" they can supply for 4 hours if you completely discharge the battery. But that's it. Batteries could supply 100% of the grid briefly, and you still wouldn't be anywhere near having completed a switchover.

You can see by the graph that the batteries don't piddle out that quickly already.

I've looked and not seen numbers on the actual battery capacity. But I think it's about 3-4 hours at name plate power levels. I think from what I know capacity is a function of discharge rate. And wear is also a function of discharge rate and max/min charge levels.

Makes the operating economics non trivial.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The grid still needs to be built for the worst case - houses aren't going to have days of storage for a week of cold weather with dark clouds

Worst case is months. In the depths of winter you need energy captured from the sun during summer. That's a drastic rethinking of the scale of storage.

Absolutely. For the sake of the topic of discussion I was trying to think of Californian conditions but for places like Sweden you'll need completely different solutions (Sweden has been powered 100% on Hydro+Nuclear for decades now so that's one way)

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

typical hackernews climate thread -- don't ask any important questions

They're bad faith, loaded questions. Be honest, you didn't ask them to learn something, you asked them because you think they're "Gotcha!" questions. Your responses to answers make this painfully obvious. If you want to make a point, then just make it. Don't hide behind a bullshit claim that you're just asking questions and then cry about downvotes.

My point is no one accounts for the cost and environmental impact . They are fair questions .
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