Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The rise of batteries in six charts

rmi.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 275 posts

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#51

Post by LUmBULtERA »

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…

Given the dramatically lower costs of utility-scale solar vs. residential rooftop solar, is it not better at a society level for state policy to incentivize utility over residential solar? Utility-scale battery installations likewise should be much cheaper.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#52

Post by treflop »

crote wrote: post #44
treflop wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries aren’t just used in cars man. Really hard to beat propane or diesel for heat in the wilderness right now.

We don't have billions of people living in the wilderness. And technology has reached a price level where off-grid solar is actually an affordable and superior alternative to propane and diesel for household use in rural Africa.

Yeah but the article is just about batteries and someone asked to see a graph about energy density.

Plus they asked about airplanes and somehow you made it about cars.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#53

Post by panick21_ »

beambot wrote: post #3
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #2

What I find really interesting is the huge growth in stationary storage - I believe it's the fastest growing segment.

Stationary systems for grid scale storage have amazing options - e.g. Form Energy - that needn't rely on power density benefits of Lithium chemistries. I wouldn't be surprised to see this sector dominate the GWh/yr chart in the next 6 years.

Form Energy has made a huge amount of marketing before they had proven anything and claimed to have a product very fast. They have not build a single large better ever. Maybe not exactly the best example.

Most of the non Li-Battery grid cell systems have not yet proven much. Many of the first generation of such system went bust. And many of the others have taken a long time and are still not deployed.

So far the successful grid battery companies are mostly repackaging other cells.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#55

Post by tonymet »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #15

This is a great set of charts and analysis, although I have two problems with it. 1. On the chart of energy density, I'd like to see the the energy density of petrol for comparison. It's much higher, and even though extrapolation is dangerous, I'd like to see how long it could take to reach parity given some of the different forecasting models they mention. Specifically regarding their mention of air travel, I'd like…

Lithium Battery 0.5 kWh/kg

Diesel 12.7 kWh/kg

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#56

Post by NotSammyHagar »

Spinnaker_ wrote: post #30
sixstringtheory wrote: post #15

This is a great set of charts and analysis, although I have two problems with it. 1. On the chart of energy density, I'd like to see the the energy density of petrol for comparison. It's much higher, and even though extrapolation is dangerous, I'd like to see how long it could take to reach parity given some of the different forecasting models they mention. Specifically regarding their mention of air travel, I'd like…

The mention of air travel was strange. I wasn't aware of anyone who thought long range flight would ever be electrified. At least not without some fundamental breakthrough. S-curves are hard to predict. Basically every time someone attempts to do it, they are way off. This [0] is a neat paper that addresses the question. We've blown past every single prediction. [0] https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/files/energy_transition_p…

There are some very early stage tests, there is some kind of island hopper electric airplane that flys regular service, and it's only like 5 or 10 miles across water.

Batteries will get more energy dense, the range will increase a bit. But yeah, it's hard to see it getting to a few 100 miles.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#57

Post by ccheney »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #8

If battery growth is exponential, but mining of ore isn't, that's a pretty big red flag imo. Once raw material production hits a wall, prices go back up, profits droop, advancement declines. After a while there'll probably be a new OPEC for batteries. Batteries are here to stay, but the growth rate isn't.

The near-total recyclability of batteries supports a circular economy, which should ease worries about raw material shortages

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#59

Post by panick21_ »

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #32
bryanlarsen wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to see any of the alternatives displacing batteries for short-term storage. Batteries aren't a good fit for long-term storage, which is where alternatives should be competitive. But that market is essentially 0 right now.

There are lots of companies trying to build out different kinds of flow batteries for storage. Think of a shipping container filled with some substance that stores charge and just sits there, waiting for you to use it, grid storage. But they all seem like research projects. https://news.mit.edu/2023/flow-batteries-grid-scale-energy-s...

There have already been some flow battery startups going bust since that started.

But there are many battery companies for gird batteries. Flow is just one type and one that seems far less poplar now-days. They were all the hype like 10-15 years ago.

The problem is the Li-commodity race has already beaten most of those designs. You need to use very, very cheap materials. Form Energy considered some flow designs but rejected them.

That's why Form Energy are going to things like Iron batteries, because Li batteries will never reach those numbers.

But very few of those alternative have had any real commercial success yet.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#60

Post by PheonixPharts »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #8

If battery growth is exponential, but mining of ore isn't, that's a pretty big red flag imo. Once raw material production hits a wall, prices go back up, profits droop, advancement declines. After a while there'll probably be a new OPEC for batteries. Batteries are here to stay, but the growth rate isn't.

It's not "exponential" it's "exponential in the S-curve", which is just some bizarro marketing way of saying "sigmoid growth".

Sigmoids (the most well know being the logistic curve) begin to tapper off overtime approaching no growth and reaching an upper bound.

Post reply on HN