Future battery tech for solar PV

John_Pierpoint

grahamc2003 wrote: »

I fondly remember the days when the Nuclear power stations got so used to submitting a "striking price" bid for electricity supplies to the grid, that on summer holiday nights they ended supplying electricity to the grid absolutely free.

I suspect you mean in the days of the electricity pool. Although the Nukes routinely bid 0 to generate, all generation was paid at the system marginal price (i.e. the max bid required to satisfy demand in a half hour period). So say Nukes bid 0p for 12:00 to 12:30 for 10GW, (Strange market eh?)

That was it enough suppliers bid £0 to cover the small hours and that is exactly what they got paid.

grahamc2003 wrote: »

How about boosting crop production using 24/7 greenhouse food production using LED lighting - I think I can make my fortune by selling the kit to the urban farmers. :rotfl:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_cultivation

Not my area, but surely for plants to grow they need light with the same energies and frequencies as daylight (which contains a lot of energy). I bet plants under leds would simply think it was night-time and not grow at all.
.

The joy of LED's are three fold:
Lots of light but little expensive heat.
Cold lamps can be put really near to the crop without giving it sunburn or wasting the light.
LED's can be adjusted to emit exactly what the plants want at a given stage of their development. Unlike current systems that light up Holland after dark, which are probably high pressure sodium.

[That Wikipedia entry helpfully explains that cannabis plants need reducing day length to get them to flower and if the female flowers are not pollinated they then produce resin in a last ditch attempt to attract beetle type visitors]

Martyn1981

Zeup, I did some similar numbers, but not in as much detail, last year when I was pondering the same idea.

I did some checking on the tech forums, and whilst I can't guarantee they are right, I assumed that the off-grid bods knew what they were talking about.

My numbers (based on that info) were for 2kWh of nighttime consumption, but only using 20% of the batteries capacity in order to achieve 10 years life. Reading between the lines, a rough rule for beginners like me is that you'll murder the first set, but probably know how to look after the more expensive better quality second set - scary!

So that means about 10kWh of capacity. I've forgotten most of the numbers, but very roughly they were similar to yours. About £1,000 of batteries, to save £100 pa, lasting for 10 years. At that point I lost interest. but ....

if battery prices come down, are easier to live with, and leccy prices go up a bit more, then it does all start to fall into place, assuming there is somewhere to store the batts.

Mart.