Battery tech

[odysseus2000]

Yes, but the market has changed to where the grid companies don’t have the guaranteed profits they once relied upon & every domestic solar & same with batteries subtracts from their earnings, so they won’t invest in the grid, but they will save as fossil & nuclear are retired due to lack of demand. Consumers will soon realize that the grid is not going to be developed & will instead create their own home-grid: Solar + batteries, taking load off the grid which will increasingly focus towards the winter gap for wind.

As mentioned there are several forecasts that uk winters will become more dull & cloudy. Who is funding these predictions? 2024 is the earliest spring I have known, everything is growing earlier, my solar lights started working earlier those with additional self installed solar run much longer into the night.

Any body whose business is long term capital generation & refining plants, hydro-carbons etc is in huge financial trouble as this new Industrial Revolution gains speed & momentum. Best not to stand in the way of such things!

Regards,

You sound like you are confusing "grid companies" with "energy producers" - distribution is not left to generators

I don't think the ESO ( as the UK bods are currently labelled) care where the energy they shunt about comes from

Good points.

I was labeling the whole system as grid companies, rather than being more specific as to generators & distributors. As I see it the generators who have traditionally constructed large capital intensive plants are now in trouble as these plants take a long time, use expensive fuels & as the transmission companies are finding that solar & solar with batteries can provide power where it’s needed requiring less distribution. The grid is becoming more focused on moving wind generated electricity rather than servicing large generator plants selling expensive electricity that consumers don’t want. Legacy generators look more & more like Yellow Pages in their future even with now known batteries & compressed gas storage & many new improved batteries are being developed in various laboratories that will potentially weigh against legacy generators, but, yes I was unclear, thank you for the correction.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

The energy usage stats for January are interesting (scroll down for graphic):

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/electri ... city-stats

Still substantial gas generation, but even in winter with limited sunlight, solar is almost as big as coal & presumably solar could go up quickly at relatively low cost & can be geared up with more storage such as electric cars used as mobile batteries as discussed in this thread.

This is an amazing revolution.

Regards,

[servodude]

You sound like you are confusing "grid companies" with "energy producers" - distribution is not left to generators

I don't think the ESO ( as the UK bods are currently labelled) care where the energy they shunt about comes from

Good points.

I was labeling the whole system as grid companies, rather than being more specific as to generators & distributors. As I see it the generators who have traditionally constructed large capital intensive plants are now in trouble as these plants take a long time, use expensive fuels & as the transmission companies are finding that solar & solar with batteries can provide power where it’s needed requiring less distribution. The grid is becoming more focused on moving wind generated electricity rather than servicing large generator plants selling expensive electricity that consumers don’t want. Legacy generators look more & more like Yellow Pages in their future even with now known batteries & compressed gas storage & many new improved batteries are being developed in various laboratories that will potentially weigh against legacy generators, but, yes I was unclear, thank you for the correction.

Regards,

Batteries don't complete with generators.
They store energy, they don't create it.
Your wardrobe isn't in competition with your tailor
- and both need a way to move your clothes about

[9873210]

But it's the short-term storage that isn't the problem, the problem is fixing the economics to incentivise storage to see us through periods of dunkelflaute,

A few possible solutions, neither cheap (but then what is?) nor quick.

1) Small (or large) Nuclear for a baseline - at least the small ones can spool up relatively quickly.
2) International distribution, like the X links 3.6GW one proposed to Morocco.
3) Large amounts of overcapacity, but that would seriously mess with the current Financing.

Paul

4) a big dollop of demand management. Including things like running aluminium smelters and Haber Bosch for half the year (This also overlaps with points 3 -- soaking up overcapacity and 2 -- trading "embedded" energy)
5) Gas peakers, run only a few days a year or possibly maintained on cold standby to guarantee reliability. It will be a long time before we de-carbonize so completely that these are the low hanging fruit. Eventually these might burn green hydrogen but the situation is too desperate to do stupid things in the name of purity.

I'm not sure about Nukes for a baseline. Because of the baseline, not because of the Nukes. Baseload is not a design goal, it's a description of the characteristics of certain plants: high capital cost, low marginal cost, poor control. Adding baseload can make things worse. Even if they solve the control problem, I doubt they will solve the cost problem enough that nukes are a good choice for seasonal peakers. Anyone remember "too cheap to meter"?

[odysseus2000]

Good points.

I was labeling the whole system as grid companies, rather than being more specific as to generators & distributors. As I see it the generators who have traditionally constructed large capital intensive plants are now in trouble as these plants take a long time, use expensive fuels & as the transmission companies are finding that solar & solar with batteries can provide power where it’s needed requiring less distribution. The grid is becoming more focused on moving wind generated electricity rather than servicing large generator plants selling expensive electricity that consumers don’t want. Legacy generators look more & more like Yellow Pages in their future even with now known batteries & compressed gas storage & many new improved batteries are being developed in various laboratories that will potentially weigh against legacy generators, but, yes I was unclear, thank you for the correction.

Regards,

Batteries don't complete with generators.
They store energy, they don't create it.
Your wardrobe isn't in competition with your tailor
- and both need a way to move your clothes about

For many years generators ruled electricity as electricity had to be supplied to meet demand, any power not used was lost, but now there are power walls & similar storage. A house can lose its grid connectivity, but still retain all electrical function requirements for several hours. In such a case a battery behaves like a generator for all practical purposes. Additionally as the battery is at the point of supply there is no need for moving the electricity.

If a property has a solar roof then the property is a generator & this would extend the run time of a battery by charging it with unwanted power. There are now many folk offering batteries on wheels as a replacement for an hydro carbon generator: Noiseless & no emissions. Such batteries on wheels are zero charge emission too if charged by solar.

As of now such battery banks on wheels are more expensive than gasoline or diesel generators, but as battery prices fall they become more competitive & do not trouble neighbours as a internal combustion generator can with noise & fumes.

Regards,

[servodude]

Batteries don't complete with generators.
They store energy, they don't create it.
Your wardrobe isn't in competition with your tailor
- and both need a way to move your clothes about

For many years generators ruled electricity as electricity had to be supplied to meet demand, any power not used was lost, but now there are power walls & similar storage. A house can lose its grid connectivity, but still retain all electrical function requirements for several hours. In such a case a battery behaves like a generator for all practical purposes. Additionally as the battery is at the point of supply there is no need for moving the electricity.

If a property has a solar roof then the property is a generator & this would extend the run time of a battery by charging it with unwanted power. There are now many folk offering batteries on wheels as a replacement for an hydro carbon generator: Noiseless & no emissions. Such batteries on wheels are zero charge emission too if charged by solar.

As of now such battery banks on wheels are more expensive than gasoline or diesel generators, but as battery prices fall they become more competitive & do not trouble neighbours as a internal combustion generator can with noise & fumes.

Regards,

You sound really enthusiastic and that's great!

It's about 18 years now since I worked on the first large scale, completely off grid commercial installation in my former main job as a telemetry/control dude; so you don't really need to sell me the concept.
If you're going to keep pushing this stuff though, try and get a grip on the fundamentals and how the industry is broken up, both technically and financially; else you'll come across as just another spruiker... which we don't really need in a space that somehow has become weirdly politicized.

[odysseus2000]

A few possible solutions, neither cheap (but then what is?) nor quick.

1) Small (or large) Nuclear for a baseline - at least the small ones can spool up relatively quickly.
2) International distribution, like the X links 3.6GW one proposed to Morocco.
3) Large amounts of overcapacity, but that would seriously mess with the current Financing.

Paul

4) a big dollop of demand management. Including things like running aluminium smelters and Haber Bosch for half the year (This also overlaps with points 3 -- soaking up overcapacity and 2 -- trading "embedded" energy)
5) Gas peakers, run only a few days a year or possibly maintained on cold standby to guarantee reliability. It will be a long time before we de-carbonize so completely that these are the low hanging fruit. Eventually these might burn green hydrogen but the situation is too desperate to do stupid things in the name of purity.

I'm not sure about Nukes for a baseline. Because of the baseline, not because of the Nukes. Baseload is not a design goal, it's a description of the characteristics of certain plants: high capital cost, low marginal cost, poor control. Adding baseload can make things worse. Even if they solve the control problem, I doubt they will solve the cost problem enough that nukes are a good choice for seasonal peakers. Anyone remember "too cheap to meter"?

I am continually amused by all the talk of using nukes for power. The whole idea was worked to death from the 1950’s onwards & was advertised as very low cost, except when the bean counters looked over the accounts the low cost was a mirage.

Additionally folk seem to think that nukes magically create electricity. They are just heat producers to make steam, to spin a generator & suffer from the low efficiency of heat engines, costs & reliability. Nukes worked wonderfully for military marine & for space missions to deep space, but for domestic supply they were hyped up as being ultra cheap, the no off switches required referred to earlier, being the best example of marketing hype. The other feature of nukes is their ability to make plutonium. France has a lot of nukes & is often argued to have been swords into ploughs, but France has set off a large number of thermonuclear weapons, even managing to have their security service kill a green peace protestor in the Rainbow warrior.

From a science perspective renewables look by far the lowest cost & reliable option, especially if power can be beamed down from orbit to cure the lack of solar in winter, but without that we are no where near exploiting all the free photons that fall upon earth. The other blessing of renewables is that the energy is in a useable & storable form. If we need heat, induction creates it efficiently from electricity.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

For many years generators ruled electricity as electricity had to be supplied to meet demand, any power not used was lost, but now there are power walls & similar storage. A house can lose its grid connectivity, but still retain all electrical function requirements for several hours. In such a case a battery behaves like a generator for all practical purposes. Additionally as the battery is at the point of supply there is no need for moving the electricity.

If a property has a solar roof then the property is a generator & this would extend the run time of a battery by charging it with unwanted power. There are now many folk offering batteries on wheels as a replacement for an hydro carbon generator: Noiseless & no emissions. Such batteries on wheels are zero charge emission too if charged by solar.

As of now such battery banks on wheels are more expensive than gasoline or diesel generators, but as battery prices fall they become more competitive & do not trouble neighbours as a internal combustion generator can with noise & fumes.

Regards,

You sound really enthusiastic and that's great!

It's about 18 years now since I worked on the first large scale, completely off grid commercial installation in my former main job as a telemetry/control dude; so you don't really need to sell me the concept.
If you're going to keep pushing this stuff though, try and get a grip on the fundamentals and how the industry is broken up, both technically and financially; else you'll come across as just another spruiker... which we don't really need in a space that somehow has become weirdly politicized.

The problem with focusing on how the industry is run is that arguments start to focus on historical use & commercial considerations that are no longer valid.

Physics & costs of various generation & storage methods are what will determine the future. When Tesla started many noted how legacy would kill them, but Tesla are growing very quickly & legacy is in trouble. Anyone who didn’t focus on the science likely made the wrong investment decisions.

In revolutions, and this looks like a revolution to me, one has to focus on what the science tells you, not what industry experts of legacy companies say. Imho most of these legacy folk & analysts are talking their own book either because they don’t understand the new technology or with the hopes they can delay it long enough to get their pensions & leg it.

Regards,

[Hallucigenia]

I often see engineering solutions to "problems" disregarded because there's a fantasy market

I think that was simply badly phrased and (given the following comment about dunkelflaute) Hal meant to say “It isn’t the short term storage that’s the problem”.

Yeah sorry - I was trying to do two things at once, blame HPLC for rotting my brain. Yep - in principle, we seem to have both the technology - lithium/sodium etc batteries whether grid/home/V2G - and an economic model - the high prices of peak electricity - for smoothing a few hours of peaking intraday.

The technology of storage for longer periods is coming into sight, and in theory we have a mechanism in the form of capacity payments to pay for it, but it doesn't feel like we quite have it right yet.

As for what the future looks like, I refer people once again to the advisory paper to the UK government, that suggests that by 2035 we could be looking at 70% variable renewables, 20% "baseload" (nuclear/biomass) and 10% "storage" of which a fifth would be fossil gas burning in the dunkelest bits of the flautes, so 2% overall - a bit like how we use coal presently. It's not perfect, I disagree with various bits of it, but that report is a good place to start.

[clissold345]

The energy usage stats for January are interesting (scroll down for graphic):

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/electri ... city-stats

Still substantial gas generation, but even in winter with limited sunlight, solar is almost as big as coal & presumably solar could go up quickly at relatively low cost & can be geared up with more storage such as electric cars used as mobile batteries as discussed in this thread.

This is an amazing revolution.

Regards,

Could someone give me a link for the costs of the different UK sources of electricity (Gas, Wind, Nuclear, Biomass, etc)? I could look them up individually - but there may be a link that gives them all in one short table?

[Hallucigenia]

Could someone give me a link for the costs of the different UK sources of electricity (Gas, Wind, Nuclear, Biomass, etc)? I could look them up individually - but there may be a link that gives them all in one short table?

How long's a piece of string? Do you want capital costs, operating costs, finance costs, levelised costs (levelised under what operating assumptions?) ? Do you want current costs, projected costs, blended costs of the current fleet or individual generators?

These things are complicated and don't lend themselves easily to "short" tables. But this is probably a start for you :

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... s-2023.pdf

[odysseus2000]

Could someone give me a link for the costs of the different UK sources of electricity (Gas, Wind, Nuclear, Biomass, etc)? I could look them up individually - but there may be a link that gives them all in one short table?

How long's a piece of string? Do you want capital costs, operating costs, finance costs, levelised costs (levelised under what operating assumptions?) ? Do you want current costs, projected costs, blended costs of the current fleet or individual generators?

These things are complicated and don't lend themselves easily to "short" tables. But this is probably a start for you :

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... s-2023.pdf

This will give you overall costs & mix:

https://grid.iamkate.com/

There are likely break downs connected to this of what each generation method currently costs, but I don’t have time to look at the moment, but if you find it, please post.

Regards,

[Hallucigenia]

This will give you overall costs & mix:

https://grid.iamkate.com/

No - that gives you the wholesale price that unencumbered generators are selling their electricity for, not what it costs them.

But a lot of generators don't sell at that price as they are on CfDs etc.

[9873210]

The technology of storage for longer periods is coming into sight, and in theory we have a mechanism in the form of capacity payments to pay for it, but it doesn't feel like we quite have it right yet.
...
I disagree with various bits of it, but that report is a good place to start.

Indeed, something is not quite right when policy is taken as a given, even when it is acknowledged to be dubious. Even BECCS (Biomass with carbon capture and storage) should be considered for winter peaking, biomass is fairly easy to store and should be compared to batteries and other storage before being burnt on sunny and windy days.

Unabated biomass capacity could, in principle, be used at low load factors to
support the operation of variable renewables. However, existing biomass plants
currently have a subsidy regime that encourages them to run for as many hours as
possible rather than operating flexibly in a back-up role.

[88V8]

.... a space that somehow has become weirdly politicized.

How do you unpoliticise subsidies? Is it even possible?

V8

[scotview]

Indeed, something is not quite right when policy is taken as a given, even when it is acknowledged to be dubious. Even BECCS (Biomass with carbon capture and storage) should be considered for winter peaking, biomass is fairly easy to store and should be compared to batteries and other storage before being burnt on sunny and windy days.

Provided :

"This week Canadian environmental groups accused Drax of “ecocide” over allegations it is burning trees taken from ancient and protected woodland in Canada."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... gy-crisis/

[odysseus2000]

This will give you overall costs & mix:

https://grid.iamkate.com/

No - that gives you the wholesale price that unencumbered generators are selling their electricity for, not what it costs them.

But a lot of generators don't sell at that price as they are on CfDs etc.

Yes, but if one looks at generator margins one can estimate what there costs are, but not as you note for renewable generators who get the difference between their cost & what they can sell the power for.

Also the poster asked for costs to generate of the various technologies & there was never an answer provided.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

Could someone give me a link for the costs of the different UK sources of electricity (Gas, Wind, Nuclear, Biomass, etc)? I could look them up individually - but there may be a link that gives them all in one short table?

How long's a piece of string? Do you want capital costs, operating costs, finance costs, levelised costs (levelised under what operating assumptions?) ? Do you want current costs, projected costs, blended costs of the current fleet or individual generators?

These things are complicated and don't lend themselves easily to "short" tables. But this is probably a start for you :

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... s-2023.pdf

The problem with these reports with future predictions is that reality & predictions rarely agree, even over quite short intervals.

The reports also over complicate the situation for investors. Most investors want things as simple as possible: Cost, time to return & margin with some risks also attached.

Regards,

[servodude]

.... a space that somehow has become weirdly politicized.

How do you unpoliticise subsidies? Is it even possible?

V8

Yeah I can see how that encroges on political ideology - though if subsidies themselves were a problem you could fix it by taking everything under public ownership

I was more thinking about how during discusion of this, it often seems more important how a form of generation is perceived to sit on the political spectrum than its actual practical use for any given case.

Getting irrationally attached to a particular technology, from a position of ignorance, is something I can't really understand
- but there's lots of it going about

[clissold345]

How long's a piece of string? Do you want capital costs, operating costs, finance costs, levelised costs (levelised under what operating assumptions?) ? Do you want current costs, projected costs, blended costs of the current fleet or individual generators?

These things are complicated and don't lend themselves easily to "short" tables. But this is probably a start for you :

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... s-2023.pdf

Thanks for the link. I've simplified the data (page 24) slightly but hopefully Ive not made mistakes.

Levelised estimates of costs of electricity generation for projects commissioning in 2025, in real 2021 prices:

- Gas £114/MWH
- Offshore wind £44/MWH
- Onshore wind £38/MWH
- Large scale solar £41/MWH