Don’t Rely on Batteries!
Further to the Telegraph article about covert attacks on the UK electricity grid, the topic of battery storage came up in the Telegraph comments – the gist was that we needed much more storage to avert the problem.
Earlier today, I came across a DESNZ report on storage, which stated:
I am frankly amazed they don’t track the energy capacity, as this is the only figure that matters.
But an average of 1-hour storage, as implied, is enough to run the grid for about 15 minutes.
Given the unaffordability of large scale storage, the only role for batteries is short term balancing – fast reaction to frequency changes, for instance, to keep things ticking over for a few minutes while gas plants get up and running.
Keep counting them worry beads!
source notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com
Paul
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To bean counters, all that matters is the bottom line. So it is with batteries. I remember here in South Australia when at the time, the world’s largest Tesla battery went in to much hew and cry, it was soon revealed that even though it couldn’t keep several thousand houses going for any more than a hour, it did pay for itself in double quick time by being the stop gap between unreliable green power and spooling up gas power or the switching required for the inter-connector from interstate.
At that level it’s good, for actual usefulness for business and household, forget it.
In SA that only time we are truly green power sufficient is spring and autumn. The days when it’s neither too hot or too cold so air-conditioning is at a minimum. Sadly, during summer when more juice is needed than winter, the solar, even though it’s working well, just can’t keep up, but the wind power is at it’s worst because the wind doesn’t blow.
Also the gas turbines are working hard but the cheeky so and so’s charge us top dollar for the power because the price of gas sky rockets for some unfathomable reason, or maybe just because they can.
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