Green energy storage

Impetus

There are numerous ways to store energy, but each has its limitations. Eg pumped water - the limitations are the availability of suitable sites, and the need to keep the pumped storage platform running virtually 365/365 to make it economic. One might get a long windy period (as Ireland is experiencing at present) and long periods of calm.

Updating hydro-electric dams

Conventional hydro-electric dams can be upgraded by installing additional generators, enabling the same river to produce more power in times of peak demand, at a low investment cost. Most of the infrastructure is already well paid for, and there is no uphill pumping cost. It also helps reduce the risk of flooding, because one can dump larger amounts of water faster at low tide just before heavy rainfall is forecast, and still create energy in the process.

Electronysis

PEM (proton exchange membrane) electrolysis can store multiple GWh of power for weeks on end at an efficiency ratio of about 70%. The start-up time is less than 10 sec from standby mode, or 10 minutes from cold start - making it far more responsive than a conventional power generation source.

The system uses water (700 m3 of water can create enough hydrogen (H2) to store 4 GWh of electricity). This is the water consumption of about 5 households every year. The energy produced (H2) is stored in tanks and converted back into electricity by fuel cells. The H2 can also be used to fuel hydrogen powered public and private transport and for industrial purposes. Energy parks are starting to spring up in Germany located in close proximity to heavy grid capacity, to perform this storage. There is no raw material cost for wind or solar energy, so the real lifetime cost per kWh generated leaves more than enough margin to pay for this type of energy storage technology to be put in place. The only limit on storage time or quantity of hydrogen is the tank capacity. The land space required for this technology is far smaller than that required for pumped storage and similar.

http://www.industry.siemens.com/topics/global/en/pem-electrolyzer/silyzer/Pages/silyzer.aspx

International Grid connectivity

This offers virtual electricity storage, by selling surplus power when generated to other countries, and importing power when needed. Wind and sun amounts vary by geographic region and at different times of the year. Even nuclear power varies - eg in France in 2003 virtually all the nuclear power plants had to be powered down due to the shortage of water in the rivers, and the country had to rely on importing electricity from neighbouring countries to keep the lights on and the air conditioning running in the soaring heat. Meanwhile Germany and Spain had large solar voltaic farms running at high efficiency in the same sunshine to supplement their conventional power production systems. The EU produces more power from solar farms than anywhere else - lead by Germany, Italy, and Spain (EU total 68 GWp -v- USA and China have about 8 GWp each).

There is an interesting blog/discussion covering the green energy storage topic at the moment in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (DE) newspaper website.

http://live.faz.net/Event/Energiespeicher?Page=0

nokia69

Electronysis is a very bad way to store power

batteries are far better, Tesla motors will start selling home battery systems for solar PV systems, but they could also be used for storing electricty at off peak times and using it later when the grid is under pressure

Impetus

nokia69 wrote: »

Electronysis is a very bad way to store power

batteries are far better, Tesla motors will start selling home battery systems for solar PV systems, but they could also be used for storing electricty at off peak times and using it later when the grid is under pressure

Why are batteries far better (than hydrogen / electrolysis)? I agree that batteries, in due course, when there is a national user base of electric cars, fitted with batteries that are good for perhaps a 100,000 cycles, combined with smart metering, offer grid storage potential. Perhaps capacitors will take over this role? Fewer pylons and 400kV lines, etc.

However hydrogen produced from water at the moment is far more sustainable, assuming it is created by electrolysis of renewable power. It allows one to add to storage capacity by increasing the size of the H2 tank farm. The components of H2 storage are far less polluting than the raw materials used in modern battery production. You can locate H2 energy parks near high capacity grid locations, reducing the number and size of grid connections required to deliver an interruption-free supply.

nokia69

Impetus wrote: »

Why are batteries far better (than hydrogen / electrolysis)? I agree that batteries, in due course, when there is a national user base of electric cars, fitted with batteries that are good for perhaps a 100,000 cycles, combined with smart metering, offer grid storage potential. Perhaps capacitors will take over this role? Fewer pylons and 400kV lines, etc.

However hydrogen produced from water at the moment is far more sustainable, assuming it is created by electrolysis of renewable power. It allows one to add to storage capacity by increasing the size of the H2 tank farm. The components of H2 storage are far less polluting than the raw materials used in modern battery production. You can locate H2 energy parks near high capacity grid locations, reducing the number and size of grid connections required to deliver an interruption-free supply.

because you lose a far bigger % of the electricty you are storing, with a battery you could get over 90% back with hydrogen you will have far more waste

also I could see millions of people using batteries to store power at home, I don't see the same happening with hydrogen

http://www.forbes.com/sites/uciliawang/2013/12/05/solarcity-next-move-bundling-teslas-batteries-with-solar/

Impetus

nokia69 wrote: »

because you lose a far bigger % of the electricty you are storing, with a battery you could get over 90% back with hydrogen you will have far more waste

also I could see millions of people using batteries to store power at home, I don't see the same happening with hydrogen

http://www.forbes.com/sites/uciliawang/2013/12/05/solarcity-next-move-bundling-teslas-batteries-with-solar/

This is a power backup using batteries for households who have PV solar. http://www.solarcity.com/residential/energy-storage.aspx

These batteries typically have a 500 cycle life - ie full charge and discharge.

They would not be suitable for grid storage given this limitation. Not to mention their limited capacity in terms of MWh. At best this technology is designed for people whose homes are off-grid, and need to be able to turn the lights on after sundown.

http://www.solarcity.com/residential/energy-storage.aspx

nokia69

Impetus wrote: »

This is a power backup using batteries for households who have PV solar. http://www.solarcity.com/residential/energy-storage.aspx

These batteries typically have a 500 cycle life - ie full charge and discharge.

They would not be suitable for grid storage given this limitation. Not to mention their limited capacity in terms of MWh. At best this technology is designed for people whose homes are off-grid, and need to be able to turn the lights on after sundown.

http://www.solarcity.com/residential/energy-storage.aspx

right now they are mainly used with off grid solar systems but if you read the quote below they have other uses

An additional benefit of energy storage is to reduce peak-usage charges on your utility bill. Some utilities offer Time-of-Use (TOU) rate plans in which the price of electricity varies based on the hour of the day. Rates are higher during the afternoon when electric demand is at its "peak" across all utility customers.
A storage system may help you save more money by drawing power from your battery instead of from the grid during higher rates peak hours. You can then recharge your battery during lower rate, off-peak hours.

also a pack like this would not be 100% charged or discharged, it would be kept between 20% and 80% to extend the life of the battery

we WILL see batteries used as grid storage its only a matter of time

Impetus

nokia69 wrote: »

right now they are mainly used with off grid solar systems but if you read the quote below they have other uses



also a pack like this would not be 100% charged or discharged, it would be kept between 20% and 80% to extend the life of the battery

we WILL see batteries used as grid storage its only a matter of time

The other application you refer to is peaking, which is probably heavier on batteries than switching a few lights on in a house after dark.

It is a big if, but if you got twice as many cycles by operating within the 20-80% range, I doubt if you would approach 1000 cycles equivalent.

We will need to see a dramatic increase in the cycle life of batteries, together with a massive elimination of toxic / rare earth substances in batteries before we see them taking over from industrial sized storage systems, on an economic, sustainable basis.

nokia69

Impetus wrote: »

This is a power backup using batteries for households who have PV solar. http://www.solarcity.com/residential/energy-storage.aspx

These batteries typically have a 500 cycle life - ie full charge and discharge.

They would not be suitable for grid storage given this limitation. Not to mention their limited capacity in terms of MWh. At best this technology is designed for people whose homes are off-grid, and need to be able to turn the lights on after sundown.

http://www.solarcity.com/residential/energy-storage.aspx

Impetus wrote: »

The other application you refer to is peaking, which is probably heavier on batteries than switching a few lights on in a house after dark.

It is a big if, but if you got twice as many cycles by operating within the 20-80% range, I doubt if you would approach 1000 cycles equivalent.

We will need to see a dramatic increase in the cycle life of batteries, together with a massive elimination of toxic / rare earth substances in batteries before we see them taking over from industrial sized storage systems, on an economic, sustainable basis.

your information on batteries is out of date

Impetus

nokia69 wrote: »

your information on batteries is out of date

Evidence that my information is out of date please?

I sincerely wish it was out of date, and rechargeable batteries did not contain polluting rare metals and did last forever and a day with no drop in the charging capacity.

I suspect that most people subscribed to this would like to find a source - even if only for their mobile phone and/or notebook PC etc.....

nokia69

Impetus wrote: »

Evidence that my information is out of date please?

I sincerely wish it was out of date, and rechargeable batteries did not contain polluting rare metals and did last forever and a day with no drop in the charging capacity.

I suspect that most people subscribed to this would like to find a source - even if only for their mobile phone and/or notebook PC etc.....

watch the video above, the reason mobile phone and PC batteries are piss poor is because of temperature and not staying between 20% to 80%

someone who bought a Tesla model S watched the video above and sent an email to the professor asking how long will his model S battery last for

QUESTION Debate continues on whether charging habits will turn out to have much effect on battery life. I have started leaving all of my li-ion consumer products at about 50% charge when they are not in use. Tesla makes this very easy with a battery slider that allows the consumer to choose between 50% and 100% end charging and even has this feature integrated into the phone app to make it very easy to adjust upwards on the fly as long as the car is plugged in. I have installed an 80A (20 kWh) charger so that I can quickly add charge to the Tesla S, allowing me to minimize the inconveniences associated with leaving the pack at a low state of charge and thus increasing the amount of time the battery stays at a mid/low SOC. I tend to do mid pack cycling, discharging generally between 30 and 70% when convenient, while aiming to have the car sit for the longer stretches like overnight, at 50%. I'm not religious about this, just tend to aim in this direction generally.

REPLY --

I THINK THAT IF YOU ARE KEEPING THE CELLS BELOW 4.0V (NO WAY FOR YOU TO TELL THAT, HOWEVER) THE BATTERY LIFE WILL BE VERY IMPRESSIVE. WE ARE TESTING CELLS BUILT IN 2002 THAT HAVE 2002 TECHNOLOGY (LIFETIME IS BETTER NOW) THAT STILL HAVE 75% OF THEIR INITIAL CAPACITY (CYLCED AT 37c THE WHOLE TIME). THESE CELLS WERE CHARGED ONLY TO 4.075V. MODERN CELLS LIKE THOSE IN TESLA CHARGED TO 4.0V SHOULD LAST A FEW DECADES, I SUSPECT, WITHOUT ANY ISSUE (SO KEEP YOUR CAR FROM RUSTING!). WHERE IS 4.0V RELATIVE TO STATE OF CHARGE? MAYBE 75%.

you don't need to watch all of the video above but go to the 1 hour 8 min mark and he talks about cycle life and recycling

now of course you could claim that by keeping the battery between 20 to 80% of charge that this is not a full charge cycle, but since we know that doing full 0 to 100% cycles is one of the things that kills the battery then this should be avoided as much as possible

also Tesla are selling over 500 cars a week and there are over 100K electric cars in the US is this not a form of green energy storage, the energy does not get returned to the grid but that might change in the future

Impetus

nokia69 wrote: »

Thank you for the video link which I shall look at when I have some spare time – it is over an hour long. I would draw your attention to a view expressed by DR. Jörg ROTHERMEL in the expert discussion I linked to at the root posting of this. (Germany is one of the largest renewable energy countries in the world with massive amounts of solar, wind and hydro electric power experience under its belt, and without doubt the finest engineering expertise on the planet).

Basically battery energy storage, while it is useful, is not enough in the scheme of things. One can go for days or even weeks with very little wind energy especially in Summer. Even if every car was electric, and all vehicles connected with two way grid connections, as well as the battery storage option you linked to yesterday, it would not be enough to deliver anything like the 5 GW/h that Ireland needs at peak times, day in day out during a low wind month. You also have to have enough power in reserve in the cars to perform as cars!

The only solutions to this energy trough under current technology is either substantial amounts of international grid connectivity, tanks of H2 stored in an energy park, or massive amounts of pumped storage (a la Norway or Switzerland). Preferably a mixture of them all, having regard to the fact that they must get regular use to be economically viable as energy storage options in themselves. I do agree that batteries will improve and if properly managed will have a useful contribution to make.

Quote from Frankfurter Allgemeine :

7 Februar 14:05 DR. JÖRG ROTHERMEL
Das reicht leider nicht aus. Das Problem ist, dass wir Wind- und Solarstrom nicht dann und nicht dort produzieren können wo er gerade gebraucht wird. Das können wir zwar etwas ausgleichen mit zusätzlichem Netzausbau, um den Strom dorthin zu transportieren wo er benötigt wird. Zudem haben wir heute schon soviel Erzeugungskapazität an Photovoltaik und Wind wie wir maximal benötigen. Alles was wir jetzt noch hinzubauen ist "Stromüberschuss" den wir sinnvollerweise speichern sollten.

http://live.faz.net/Event/Energiespeicher?Page=0

Impetus

I am watching your video at the moment. He is citing a well to wheel efficiency of Hydrogen based on it being made from natural gas. The Siemens technology is far more efficient in that it uses green energy to break down water and create the hydrogen gas.

Natural gas to H2 is not renewable, and in the US will involve a lot of fracing (not fracking as the Americans and GB's spell it). It derives from hydraulic fracturing of rock. It is not a very environmentally clean way to get gas. See the Gasland movie - this is only a trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZe1AeH0Qz8

nokia69

Impetus wrote: »

I am watching your video at the moment. He is citing a well to wheel efficiency of Hydrogen based on it being made from natural gas. The Siemens technology is far more efficient in that it uses green energy to break down water and create the hydrogen gas.

Natural gas to H2 is not renewable, and in the US will involve a lot of fracing (not fracking as the Americans and GB's spell it). It derives from hydraulic fracturing of rock. It is not a very environmentally clean way to get gas. See the Gasland movie - this is only a trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZe1AeH0Qz8

STOP

if you think that hydrogen produced by any source is the solution to anything then you DON'T understand the problem

forget hydrogen, at best its the punch line to a joke at worst its a scam

hydrogen is a bad joke and will NEVER be used on a large scale

Markcheese

Why would you take natural gas turn it into hydrogen and then stick it in a fuel cell .
Pretty sure I've seen something about natural gas fueled fuel cells ...

Impetus

nokia69 wrote: »

STOP

if you think that hydrogen produced by any source is the solution to anything then you DON'T understand the problem

forget hydrogen, at best its the punch line to a joke at worst its a scam

hydrogen is a bad joke and will NEVER be used on a large scale

Why please? You post extreme statements without any credible backup for your assertions. I would love to know why H2 is a "scam"....

Impetus

Markcheese wrote: »

Why would you take natural gas turn it into hydrogen and then stick it in a fuel cell .
Pretty sure I've seen something about natural gas fueled fuel cells ...

creating H2 from gas is loaded with energy conversion losses at every turn.

It needs to originate from green energy, because this has the largest profit margin (which covers the 20% odd conversion loss). And green energy needs H2 to fill in the supply gaps.

Impetus

nokia69 wrote: »

also Tesla are selling over 500 cars a week and there are over 100K electric cars in the US is this not a form of green energy storage, the energy does not get returned to the grid but that might change in the future

This video has very little to do with grid scale energy storage. It is a Stanford U history lesson on the Tesla, aimed at 20 something freshmen.

The only element that the movie suggests which is consistent with your postings is that if a battery is kept within the 20/80% min / max charge it will have a lot more cycles. Even that is not properly supported by evidence, while I do not doubt same - the only issue is the added number of cycles.

You have to keep in mind that even if there were a million electric cars in Ireland, each of which had say 30 MW of "surplus" electricity storage on average, it would only offer cover for about a week. Which while it is a help, is not enough. Also the motorist has to keep in mind his/her own energy budget for their planned driving, and this has to be kept within the 20/80% load range.

nokia69

Impetus wrote: »

This video has very little to do with grid scale energy storage. It is a Stanford U history lesson on the Tesla, aimed at 20 something freshmen.

The only element that the movie suggests which is consistent with your postings is that if a battery is kept within the 20/80% min / max charge it will have a lot more cycles. Even that is not properly supported by evidence, while I do not doubt same - the only issue is the added number of cycles.

You have to keep in mind that even if there were a million electric cars in Ireland, each of which had say 30 MW of "surplus" electricity storage on average, it would only offer cover for about a week. Which while it is a help, is not enough. Also the motorist has to keep in mind his/her own energy budget for their planned driving, and this has to be kept within the 20/80% load range.

I NEVER said the video was about grid storage, I just said you were wrong about how long batteries could last for, you asked for the evidence so I gave you the video

where is all this excess green energy that you want to store, the grid does work better if you have a cheep way to store energy but I'm not sure why you need to store months worth of electricty, all you need to do is be able to store power to help deal with peak demand

we will see large numbers of people with batteries in their homes charged at night and then used during the peak hours, this will start to happen by the end of the year

I doubt we will ever see a large hydrogen storage system

Impetus

nokia69 wrote: »

I NEVER said the video was about grid storage, I just said you were wrong about how long batteries could last for, you asked for the evidence so I gave you the video

where is all this excess green energy that you want to store, the grid does work better if you have a cheep way to store energy but I'm not sure why you need to store months worth of electricty, all you need to do is be able to store power to help deal with peak demand

we will see large numbers of people with batteries in their homes charged at night and then used during the peak hours, this will start to happen by the end of the year

I doubt we will ever see a large hydrogen storage system

Green energy storage is the topic here. While electric car batteries will have a role, the scope is a lot wider. Again you make a sweeping statement "I doubt we will ever see a large hydrogen storage system" with no scientific evidence to backup your assertion.

nokia69

Impetus wrote: »

Green energy storage is the topic here. While electric car batteries will have a role, the scope is a lot wider. Again you make a sweeping statement "I doubt we will ever see a large hydrogen storage system" with no scientific evidence to backup your assertion.

you admit already in the thread that producing hydrogen is not efficient

do you also know how difficult and dangerous it is to store hydrogen

there is plenty of scientific evidence to back up all my claims

Impetus

nokia69 wrote: »

you admit already in the thread that producing hydrogen is not efficient

do you also know how difficult and dangerous it is to store hydrogen

there is plenty of scientific evidence to back up all my claims

I did not - I only said that H2 from nat gas is inefficient.

It is not difficult or dangerous to store H2 in land based tank farms. Please don't confuse the issue with H2 in cars.

In any event researchers have reached an advanced stage in the use of ammonia in hydrogen storage to reduce the mass of the stored object. More here:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=hydrogen+storage+ammonia&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=N38CU-3TCsmd7gbYm4F4&ved=0CCUQgQMwAA

nokia69

Impetus wrote: »

Green energy storage is the topic here. While electric car batteries will have a role, the scope is a lot wider. Again you make a sweeping statement "I doubt we will ever see a large hydrogen storage system" with no scientific evidence to backup your assertion.

Impetus wrote: »

I did not - I only said that H2 from nat gas is inefficient.

It is not difficult or dangerous to store H2 in land based tank farms. Please don't confuse the issue with H2 in cars.

In any event researchers have reached an advanced stage in the use of ammonia in hydrogen storage to reduce the mass of the stored object. More here:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=hydrogen+storage+ammonia&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=N38CU-3TCsmd7gbYm4F4&ved=0CCUQgQMwAA

producing hydrogen from water is even worse than producing it from natural gas

its never going to happen

if you had a wind farm producing electricty why would you want to waste so much power producing hydrogen, if you make money selling electricty you don't want to waste any

Impetus

nokia69 wrote: »

producing hydrogen from water is even worse than producing it from natural gas

its never going to happen

if you had a wind farm producing electricty why would you want to waste so much power producing hydrogen, if you make money selling electricty you don't want to waste any

This thread is posted based on a large upscale of the wind energy generation system - ie where Ireland has far more energy production capacity than it needs. The objective is to go some way towards eliminating the 6€billion a year spent on imported energy and turning it into energy exports instead.

Even if Ireland did not achieve large scale exports in the short/medium term, the price of energy varies enormously based on time of day. eg from €34 to €225 per MWh - see http://www.sem-o.com/Pages/default.aspx

There is a huge margin in the equation for anyone storing energy generated offpeak when they could only sell it for 3.5 c per kWh - if they instead released it into the market at 22.5c per kWh using storage.

nokia69

I know all that

so why do you want to store energy for weeks or months when the price swings happen every day

Markcheese

the main limiting factor on all green energy storage is the cost..

Even if battery technology becomes fantastic,or someone is dumb enough to build huge pumped storage to back up wind turbines ect ect, it won't come close to being as cheap as natural gas in existing power plants... (as a backup to wind)
No matter how many wind turbines we have we're pretty much going to need our peak electricity demand backed up
by gas...
And if new tech comes on stream to provide low price alternatives to gas it'll drive down the cost of gas and of gas produced power-
Because that infrastructure is built and the money spent...

Macha

Markcheese wrote: »

the main limiting factor on all green energy storage is the cost..

Even if battery technology becomes fantastic,or someone is dumb enough to build huge pumped storage to back up wind turbines ect ect, it won't come close to being as cheap as natural gas in existing power plants... (as a backup to wind)
No matter how many wind turbines we have we're pretty much going to need our peak electricity demand backed up
by gas...
And if new tech comes on stream to provide low price alternatives to gas it'll drive down the cost of gas and of gas produced power-
Because that infrastructure is built and the money spent...

This is not accurate. The are plenty of other technical options, including interconnection, demand side management, some curtailment and yes, some peaking plants. These technologies should all be able to compete in a fully functional balancing market that is, ideally, a regional one that identifies the potential options wider than just within national borders.

There is no guarantee that wholesale gas prices will go down in the future and every indication they will rise as conventional sources dry up and carbon pricing comes into effect, encouraging a switch from coal to gas across Europe.

Markcheese

My point wasn't knocking use management or even interconnectors but if we have a wind turbine based electricity generation system we're going to need a stored energy system to back it up (wether it's gas,biomas,batteries,hydrogen what ever).. Doesn't matter if we have 4 times or 5 or 10 times our daily power usage in wind turbines ... It's useless if the wind doesnt blow for a week... And if it's
going to come through Interconnecters, then it's still got to come from somewhere ....
As to the gas price even if the price goes through the roof , the gas component is a small component of the overall cost of keeping stations available to back up periods of slack wind...
Most Irish power stations run on gas,most have at least 15 to 20 years life left in them before major refits are needed,probably a lot more if the gas price goes so high as to make wind our main power source...


Where's it going to come for

Macha

Markcheese wrote: »

My point wasn't knocking use management or even interconnectors but if we have a wind turbine based electricity generation system we're going to need a stored energy system to back it up (wether it's gas,biomas,batteries,hydrogen what ever).. Doesn't matter if we have 4 times or 5 or 10 times our daily power usage in wind turbines ... It's useless if the wind doesnt blow for a week... And if it's
going to come through Interconnecters, then it's still got to come from somewhere ....

No, we don't need a a stored energy system to back it up - that's exactly my point - we need a balancing market where lots of technologies, including storage, can compete to provide those balancing services. In terms of balancing, renewables can themselves provide key ancillary services to the electricity system like reactive power or fast reserve. And don't forget renewable installations can shut themselves down - nukes and coal plants can't. You can read more here: https://www.entsoe.eu/about-entso-e/market/balancing-and-ancillary-services-markets/

Markcheese wrote: »

As to the gas price even if the price goes through the roof , the gas component is a small component of the overall cost of keeping stations available to back up periods of slack wind...

See above.

Markcheese wrote: »

Most Irish power stations run on gas,most have at least 15 to 20 years life left in them before major refits are needed,probably a lot more if the gas price goes so high as to make wind our main power source...

Hah, you sure? You have any idea how disruptive PV is? Germany is at 22% share of renewables electricity and gas plants are already having to shut down, also of course because coal is so cheap.

Read this report to see how close PV already is to the LCOE of CCGT in Germany, or even below!: http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/publications/veroeffentlichungen-pdf-dateien-en/studien-und-konzeptpapiere/study-levelized-cost-of-electricity-renewable-energies.pdf

Markcheese

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b042zsy5

BBC radio programme on energy storage about 20 minutes long,

The bit I found most interesting was adding up to 5% hydrogen to the gas grid as energy storage...

Stored hydrogen is the best solution for shipping and freight that I can see.

I don't get this "keep the lights on" campaign at all. Turn 'em off until you get it right, you'd be surprised how much more an incentive that is.