Renewable energy saved from intermittency issues.

celtic_oz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sddb0Khx0yA

Finally looks like someone has found a way to store electricity on a large scale cheaply.

As he says: "We need to think about the problem differently. We need to think big. We need to think cheap.

Capt'n Midnight

any idea of the costs ?
or temperatures ?

Lead production is 8 million tonnes per year - half of it for car batteries
by comparison Antimony is only 120,000 tonnes

sodium - sulphur has been around for quite a while
it's another high temperature battery made from cheap accessible stuff, 70 million tonnes of sulphur each year, and more in acid rain/smelter and fossil fuel waste and seawater is about 1% sodium. And at 350c it's probably a lower melting point than most molten salts

BTW
To give you an idea of the scale of energy storage needed coal production is about 20 million tonnes a day ( not all coal is used for leccy, but not all leccy is made from coal - just cba using ToE's )

Markcheese

Kind of puts spirit of Ireland back on the map( cost wise)... Can't imagine that vast vast battery halls or parks and the all the wind farms to power them would be cheaper than gas... Or using our current gas plants as back up to wind(plus efficencies,smart meters,yady yady yady)

On a similar vein, I heard years ago that Shetland isles were researching small scale hydrogen production, and hydrogen powered generators(each in 40 foot containers) at wind turbine sites to give them a chemical energy store,(away from population centres) didn't hear any more about it ? Why ? Too inefficient ? Too dangerous? Too expensive? Or what....?
Anything else that could do a similar job.... ?

Capt'n Midnight

Markcheese wrote: »

Kind of puts spirit of Ireland back on the map( cost wise)... Can't imagine that vast vast battery halls or parks and the all the wind farms to power them would be cheaper than gas... Or using our current gas plants as back up to wind(plus efficencies,smart meters,yady yady yady)

Sodium Sulphur is uneconomic compared to hydro storage (all inc. pumped)

On a similar vein, I heard years ago that Shetland isles were researching small scale hydrogen production, and hydrogen powered generators(each in 40 foot containers) at wind turbine sites to give them a chemical energy store,(away from population centres) didn't hear any more about it ? Why ? Too inefficient ? Too dangerous? Too expensive? Or what....?
Anything else that could do a similar job.... ?

IIRC there is site that uses hydrogen as an energy store, but it's not connected to the grid. Losses are large, but far cheaper than connecting to the grid or importing fuel. Not viable anywhere you have a connection to the grid.

pljudge321

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Sodium Sulphur is uneconomic compared to hydro storage (all inc. pumped)

New pumped hydro storage itself being currently largely uneconomic.

Capt'n Midnight

most hydro storage isn't pumped


talk about exporting aluminium from Iceland - which happens anyway - as a way to use their hydro power to produce electricity elsewhere

pljudge321

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

most hydro storage isn't pumped

Eh, yeah it is.

Capt'n Midnight

excluding run of the water systems, almost all hydro is stored energy that is released on demand

pljudge321

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

excluding run of the water systems, almost all hydro is stored energy that is released on demand

Storage in power systems would usually refer to grid energy storage, so not quite the same thing.

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.claverton-energy.com/european-hydro-capacity-compared-to-the-demand-for-electricity.html177 TWh is what we have stored hydro in Europe, how much of that is pumped ??

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/08/balancing-the-grid-with-pumped-storage The next closest options are compressed air energy storage, with just 440 MW, and sodium-sulphur batteries at 316 MW.

By comparison a large jet engine can produce 58MW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Trent#Industrial_Trent_60_Gas_Turbine

pljudge321

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

http://www.claverton-energy.com/european-hydro-capacity-compared-to-the-demand-for-electricity.html177 TWh is what we have stored hydro in Europe, how much of that is pumped ??

The 177 TWh would refer to just the pumped storage stations I'd imagine. Dinorwig in the UK is the largest in the EU and has about 10 TWh of storage so the scale seems about right.

pljudge321

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

By comparison a large jet engine can produce 58MW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Trent#Industrial_Trent_60_Gas_Turbine

The new Siemens gas turbines can do up to 375 MW.

Markcheese

I think I've lost the thread a bit ,what have jet engines and gas turbines to do with batteries and power storage. ?
When we hear motor companies talking about a future hydrogen economy where do they reckon the hydrogen would come from...? Is there a possibility of major efficiencies in the production and use of hydrogen? Allowing Ireland to make it wherever there is wind without need for the grid... Saw a plan to combine hydrogen with carbon from clean coal tech to make hydro-carbon (oil) sounds like a lot of energy to make something that is burnt at about 10 to 15% efficiency in a car .... But if u can make hydrogen more stable it would at least be transportable....

Capt'n Midnight

Markcheese wrote: »

I think I've lost the thread a bit ,what have jet engines and gas turbines to do with batteries and power storage. ?

One jet engine has the same output as ALL of the grid storage batteries in use worldwide.

And I'm querying whether the new battery offers any advantages over the Sodium Sulphur battery

Markcheese

Ok , got u on the get engine bit...
Never had a prob on u comparing advantages of battery type,
I suppose it'll have a lot to do with production cost per unit stored, how long u can store for,how many cycles it lasts, and end of life / reprocessing costs.... So total life cycle costs per unit stored...there maybe a few health and safety issues too, likelyhood of producing anything toxic or explosive during production, battery life or reprocessing....

Capt'n Midnight

another alternative is smart meters + lots and lots of insulation and then store the surplus energy as thermal heat

Proper storage heaters, smart , linked into weather forecast
Perhaps even storage heaters that use phase change so don't loose heat over time
Houses and premises that can be keep warm hours after the heat has been turned off mean you can average out the heating load of apartments.

you pay less if you agree a greater +/- variation on temperature perhaps

pljudge321

Buildings are the one big area where there are massive energy savings to be made, and relatively cheaply. I thinks they comprise around 40% of total EU energy consumption.

Apart from that I think storage is massively oversold as the holy grail in renewables integration. The studies I've seen for Ireland indicate that it is pretty much pointless until around 9 GW of wind is integrated on the system, and even then theres an equivalent benefit to simply having better wind forecast models and stochastic unit commitment implemented.

Capt'n Midnight

pljudge321 wrote: »

Buildings are the one big area where there are massive energy savings to be made, and relatively cheaply. I thinks they comprise around 40% of total EU energy consumption.

Three types of heat , waste heat from one can be used in lower grades
- industrial high grade heat, hundreds of degrees
- hot water
- space heating = warm rooms

A lot of the industrial heat is used to break chemical bonds, baring a change in the laws of thermodynamics there aren't game changing savings to be made there.

The studies I've seen for Ireland indicate that it is pretty much pointless until around 9 GW of wind is integrated on the system, and even then theres an equivalent benefit to simply having better wind forecast models and stochastic unit commitment implemented.

To get massive storage you need to upgrade the grid and for that sort of money you could build more interconnectors to the UK, then and ONLY then can you start to talk about exporting power

Also note that batteries and interconnectors are both DC
so the rectifiers and inverters and transformers are similar



The point being that much of the infrastructure you use to provide massive amounts of stored energy are the same as will link you to the UK grid, so the economics change a lot.


Peak demand is a lot pricier than off peak, up to 10 times the price.
MOST of the storage system economics are based on chasing that sweet spot. Super insulated hot water tanks and homes with smart meters would reduce peak demand and thus a lot of the economics.

Markcheese

As energy prices increase aren't the super insulating of homes and smart metering( to hit that sweet spot ) almost a given to leave energy costs affordable. plus if everyone moved to super storage heaters and electric hot water storage heaters , as well as cars, have u not just increased the baseline electric demand... U may have 2 or 3 days thermal store what happens when u have a calm week or fortnight... Does wood or biomass not make a more sensible dependable energy store.....and when u include transmission losses prob more efficent than electricity... Leaving electricity for things like motors and electronics...

Capt'n Midnight

Markcheese wrote: »

Does wood or biomass not make a more sensible dependable energy store.....and when u include transmission losses prob more efficent than electricity... Leaving electricity for things like motors and electronics...

gas turbines can be up to 60% efficient, so electricity can beat fireplaces and such

condensing boilers are more efficient, but the capital investments and maintenance costs can out weigh this


work out how much biomass you need , it's a lot , I can remember when we used to get a ton of turf for thirty quid , and it was for the fireplace in one room still had central heating and immersion ( and woe betide anyone who left it on )

pljudge321

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

gas turbines can be up to 60% efficient, so electricity can beat fireplaces and such

condensing boilers are more efficient, but the capital investments and maintenance costs can out weigh this


work out how much biomass you need , it's a lot , I can remember when we used to get a ton of turf for thirty quid , and it was for the fireplace in one room still had central heating and immersion ( and woe betide anyone who left it on )

I remember working out how much land we would need to cover with biomass to cover the countries electricity supply as part of a college assignment. Suffice to say we would need more land.

Markcheese

Yes , a ton of turf burnt in an open fire in a draughty ,poorly insulated room is inefficient, as is an electric storage heater in same room...
... high insulation is a given as is a decent stove.... Would really only use wood/ biomass pellets for space/water heating.... 60% efficent sounds a bit optimistic for a new gas generator even for a CHP, ( don't think bord Gais or esb are getting that with new plants at aghada+whitegate) ...even then 60% efficent at power plant loses a lot in transmission....

Personally , I reckon the best battery we have for intermitant wind is the gas generators we already have... Quickest to respond, already there, and will go decades longer than design life if not used much...