Energy Matters Global and Domestic

[bobins]

It's not quite that simple, unfortunately. There are still issues with the widespread use of battery storage to prop up the system at the moment. It gets horrendously complicated but a lot of it is down to the need for 'inertia' on the system and a stable controllable energy supply, and also the fact that wind / solar / battery require inverters, and those inverters are still showing issues on occasions - the inverters are what might be the root cause of the Iberian problem.
I think I remember reading somewhere before that the inverters require a grid supply to sync to, but they've been known to mis-read that sync and start doing their own thing...... which is less than ideal when you're feeding into the national grid

A quote from the article I linked to:
"In just five seconds, Spain lost approximately 15 GW of capacity, equivalent to 60% of its national electricity demand. The remaining generation was insufficient to meet demand, thus triggering a cascading failure across the entire grid."
........There ain't enough batteries to contain that magnitude of loss.

[thorter]

The trouble is that current large scale battery storage can only hold up the grid for seconds, then needs to be quickly recharged somehow. Much excess solar? In a largely wind plus solar scenario it would need days of storage to cover periods of low wind. This would need batteries amounting to many terawatt hours of capacity. In the UK, generation over a typical day is roughly 0.7 terawatt hours (700,000 MWh), and could double if universal home heating and charging 20 million electric cars is achieved. The largest current grid scale batteries are about 1,000 MWh, so many thousands would be needed.

On prices, don’t be fooled by current selective (cross) subsidies. Once everyone gets a cross subsidy, then no one will get any benefit. Also, at present, batteries seem to be dedicated to gaming the market, not holding an essential reserve.

[bobins]

Your last point highlights the bit so often overlooked !
The battery storage industry isn't really interested in having large scale installations sitting there waiting for that day / time when they're needed. The business model revolves around topping them up with cheap electricity, and then emptying them out when the sell price is higher - this selling can involve selling the power abroad via the overseas interconnects (probably actually quite a rare occurrence) or selling via a pre-arranged contract. The battery capacity might not be there in the quantities expected just when the grid needs it most
If you want to have sufficient battery capacity sitting there 'waiting for that day', then that will cost. A lot !!!

[thorter]

If you want a tacit admission that the whole thing is difficult or impossible, look no further than Milliband`s dedication to carbon capture and storage. If renewables were really the solution, then I am sure he would not be desperate to find a way to retain hated fossil fuelled generation at huge additional cost.

[bobins]

I think it'd just be easier to reclassify the fossil fuelled energy generation as 'green', much like they've done with Drax. IIRC, more carbon comes out the chimney at Drax with them burning wood pellets than would come out with a comparable coal fired power station. It's a funny old world......

[thorter]

Yes indeed. They would have you to take their word for it that these things achieve what is asserted. Somehow, what you know about it says otherwise.

Net zero by 2050, but it takes 80 years to regrow hardwood back to the original size, not to mention emissions from transporting it a quarter way round the earth.

[bobins]

......"A pessimist is seldom disapointed"

[thorter]

Aye, a pessimist, and much to be pessimistic about!