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Giant batteries drain economics of gas power plants

reuters.com

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Re: Giant batteries drain economics of gas power plants

#41

Post by samus »

bell-cot wrote: post #16

The reality is much more complex than "batteries replace gas" - > Developers can no longer use financial modelling that assumes gas power plants are used constantly throughout their 20-year-plus lifetime, analysts said. > Instead, modellers need to predict how much gas generation is needed during times of peak demand and to compensate for the intermittency of renewable sources that are hard to anticipate. > "It does…

It is probably smart to keep around a certain capacity of nonrenewables to provide at least some base load. Long periods of low sunshine and slow winds could deplete batteries to a critical level. Also, the turbines of big powerplants act as grid frequency stabilizer. Do grid-scale batteries use alternators or might they run flywheels?

Re: Giant batteries drain economics of gas power plants

#42

Post by Emma_Goldman »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #31
snewman wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? My understanding is that this can be true in some regions but requires fairly aggressive use of, not only overbuilt renewables (which may pose challenges in land use and siting), but also long haul transmission (also difficult to site), demand response, etc. And then there's the scary possibility of an extended weather anomaly (several weeks with no wind and minimal solar). Having some long term storage in th…

https://www.mr-sustainability.com/stories/2021/overbuilding-... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcgECmaMkAg https://cleantechnica.com/2020/09/07/the-best-electricity-pl... https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2020/05/14/overbuilding-solar-at... https://energycentral.com/c/em/overbuilding-curtailing-renew... https://ases.org/firm-power-generation/

Interesting and bold proposition, but I suspect the reason why this has not been treated as a feasible vision by any government is that it is optimised for least-cost in the median scenario, not high energy security in the extreme scenario of wind and sun droughts, and that it does not factor in the limits to wind and PV deployment rates. Also, the first scenario still favours electrolytic hydrogen over li-on batteries anyway.

Re: Giant batteries drain economics of gas power plants

#43

Post by toomuchtodo »

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #42
toomuchtodo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.mr-sustainability.com/stories/2021/overbuilding-... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcgECmaMkAg https://cleantechnica.com/2020/09/07/the-best-electricity-pl... https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2020/05/14/overbuilding-solar-at... https://energycentral.com/c/em/overbuilding-curtailing-renew... https://ases.org/firm-power-generation/

Interesting and bold proposition, but I suspect the reason why this has not been treated as a feasible vision by any government is that it is optimised for least-cost in the median scenario, not high energy security in the extreme scenario of wind and sun droughts, and that it does not factor in the limits to wind and PV deployment rates. Also, the first scenario still favours electrolytic hydrogen over li-on batteri…

https://electrek.co/2023/11/20/world-may-be-on-track-for-tri...

> Governments plan to double renewable capacity by 2030, and tripling is within sight, according to a newly released report.

> Many countries are already on track to exceed their national targets, and more ambition is achievable to bring a tripling of global renewables within reach, according to an analysis of national targets by energy think tank Ember.

> The report analyzes renewables targets for 57 countries, plus the EU, that collectively represent 90% of global power sector emissions. According to these targets, global renewable capacity will reach an estimated 7.3 terawatts (TW) in 2030, more than doubling from 3.4 TW in 2022. More than 75% of renewable capacity in 2030, where stated, will be from solar and wind.

> However, the current renewables boom is already outpacing governments’ planned growth. The world could achieve a doubling just by continuing the deployment achieved in 2023 throughout the rest of the decade – yet all signs point to a more rapid growth curve.

> If the countries analyzed by Ember continue the growth rate of 17% achieved since 2016 throughout the rest of this decade, it would put the world on track for a tripling of renewables.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/13/chinas-carb...

> The most striking growth has been in solar power, according to Myllyvirta. Solar installations increased by 210 gigawatts (GW) this year alone, which is twice the total solar capacity of the US and four times what China added in 2020.

> The analysis, which is based on official figures and commercial data, found that China installed 70GW of wind power this year – more than the entire power generation capacity of the UK. It is also expected to add 7GW of hydro power and 3GW of nuclear power capacity this year, said the report.

Re: Giant batteries drain economics of gas power plants

#44

Post by Emma_Goldman »

dpierce9 wrote: post #39
Emma_Goldman wrote: post #11

> "Without providing price detail, which companies say is commercially sensitive, Clarke said Carlton had struggled to finance the planned gas plant in part because of uncertainty over the revenues it would generate and the number of hours it would run." This is the crucial point. Political uncertainty about the future energy system is jacking up the rate of return investors are demanding of gas plant projects withou…

Why call this political uncertainty as opposed to economic uncertainty? The future is intrinsically uncertain. The only thing that has changed is new entrants to the market. If gas plants can be replaced by something cheaper then they will be. If gas plants make economic sense, they will be built. The fact that gas developers have to model additional players in their markets to prove their economic viability seems fi…

> "If gas plants can be replaced by something cheaper then they will be"

This is a simplification of what is a highly complex, interdependent, path dependent and regulated system, with long lead times, and more priorities than just least-cost. The energy system's development isn't the unfolding of an endogenous economic rationality - it's very messy! For all those reasons, it's usually best understood through the lens of political economy.

Also, I don't know why you think there's an anti-green sentiment implicit in my comment. My own views are precisely the opposite.

Re: Giant batteries drain economics of gas power plants

#45

Post by bryanlarsen »

7thaccount wrote: post #23
toomuchtodo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first point is excellent, that this sends capital market signals to investors to not invest in fossil generation. But to your other point, seasonal storage is not required. All available evidence indicates overbuilding renewables and simply making peace with excess curtailment can solve for that, along with transmission and perhaps pumped hydro where geography allows for that.

That's at a cost of trillions though - perhaps annually (just something to keep in mind). Transmission is crazy expensive and hard to secure right of way for. The investment costs on renewables are also pretty high.

The world spends $5T on fossil fuels annually. Spending trillions to decarbonize may still be a money saving measure.

Re: Giant batteries drain economics of gas power plants

#46

Post by Emma_Goldman »

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #42
toomuchtodo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.mr-sustainability.com/stories/2021/overbuilding-... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcgECmaMkAg https://cleantechnica.com/2020/09/07/the-best-electricity-pl... https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2020/05/14/overbuilding-solar-at... https://energycentral.com/c/em/overbuilding-curtailing-renew... https://ases.org/firm-power-generation/

Interesting and bold proposition, but I suspect the reason why this has not been treated as a feasible vision by any government is that it is optimised for least-cost in the median scenario, not high energy security in the extreme scenario of wind and sun droughts, and that it does not factor in the limits to wind and PV deployment rates. Also, the first scenario still favours electrolytic hydrogen over li-on batteri…

I can't reply to your comment so posting here: Growth rates can be misleading when starting from a low absolutes. The EU and the UK, the two cases I'm most familiar with, do not look set to meet their renewable targets. The UK climate advisory body, that sets each phase of the national carbon budget, specifically include energy security, weather sensitivity and deployment rates limits into their modelling of the future UK energy mix and the role of hydrogen storage (though of course 'limits' are not fixed but relative to competing priorities and alternatives):

https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/delivering-a-reliable-...

Re: Giant batteries drain economics of gas power plants

#47

Post by bumby »

QuarterReptile wrote: post #40
bumby wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Semis/tractor-trailers are still a problem. Sure, they can make them run off batteries, but you have to forgo a lot of cargo capacity to do so, which makes the economics tough.

No discussion of battery trucks can go very far without reaching the conclusion that more freight must travel by rail. That's a correct conclusion, but for the same reasons it has never carried the day in the US for 75 years, that transition will continue to not happen.

I think you're right, but wouldn't this still necessitate freight to travel by truck from rail centers to population centers? That's how a lot of the system currently operates in the US, no?

Re: Giant batteries drain economics of gas power plants

#48

Post by bryanlarsen »

bumby wrote: post #33
marcosdumay wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Renewables can't power things like trains, planes or semi trucks. Eh... The only one on your list that is currently a problem is planes. It's expensive powering semi trucks with them, that's why people mostly don't, and it's almost trivial for trains. There is also no fundamental reason why planes should be impossible. There are several well understood possibilities for them, but very few people have focused on sol…

Semis/tractor-trailers are still a problem. Sure, they can make them run off batteries, but you have to forgo a lot of cargo capacity to do so, which makes the economics tough.

Replace 2T of engine + fuel with 5T of battery. Regulations allow an 82T limit for electric trucks compared with 80T for diesel trucks. So there's only a ~1T difference in cargo capacity, which is at most 2%.

Re: Giant batteries drain economics of gas power plants

#49

Post by matthewdgreen »

snewman wrote: post #15
BirAdam wrote: post #9

It would be neat to see an alternate universe where there was zero corporate welfare for petroleum and for solar/wind/tidal/hydro. I imagine that in such a world, renewables would have become the default sometime in the 70s and millions of lives would have been saved due to fewer oil wars and cleaner air.

Have you run the numbers on this, or are you just imagining? In the 70s, solar and (to a lesser but still substantial extent) wind were still extremely expensive, impractical for large scale use. As were the batteries that are needed to smooth out periods of low renewable generation. I'm an absolute supporter of renewables, and I'd love to see support for fossil fuels phased out, but it's been a long climb to reach t…

The appropriate counterfactual here is if we'd made investments into renewables back in the 70s/80s/90s of a scale similar to those we made in the 00s/10s/20s. It's not really clear what the result would have been. To really answer this you'd need to unpack the past two decades' worth of cost decreases in (e.g.,) PV and see how many of them would have been possible with late-20th century technology.

My uneducated guess is that we could have moved the timelines forward at least a decade, and that matters a lot when you're dealing with exponential cost/deployment curves (not to mention possible climate feedbacks.)

Re: Giant batteries drain economics of gas power plants

#50

Post by gosub100 »

BirAdam wrote: post #9

It would be neat to see an alternate universe where there was zero corporate welfare for petroleum and for solar/wind/tidal/hydro. I imagine that in such a world, renewables would have become the default sometime in the 70s and millions of lives would have been saved due to fewer oil wars and cleaner air.

solar panels barely existed in the '70s. Nuclear would have become the default, probably at the cost of a few meltdowns, but the air still wouldn't be clean because battery (and manufacturing) technology wasn't up to par with what it is today.
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