Solar ... In the news

Martyn1981

Sweden is starting to push PV and offering subsidies towards domestic storage:

Sweden plans 60% subsidy for residential batteries

Sweden currently has just 120 MW of solar PV capacity, however this represents a big jump in installations over the past year. A recent PV strategy released by the Swedish Energy Agency suggests that solar could account for 5-10% of the country’s energy by 2040.

Suggestions that Australia may have reached the point that storage starts to take off:

Battery storage may have started mass market take-up in Australia

Even more worrying for utilities is that the economics of battery storage are close, very close. Bruce Mountain, from advisory firm CME, says the effective halving of costs in the second version of the Tesla Powerwall has made solar and storage cheaper than grid-supplied electricity in places like South Australia.
In fact, Mountain says the combination of solar and storage is now 25 per cent cheaper than the best retail offer in that state.

Cooper says that is not quite the case in NSW. Yet. "We are totally open about that – when you are just looking at bill savings, it is now making pure economic sense in certain household situations but not all.

"But what makes it still a rational decision," he says, "is that many people are motivated by other 'intrinsic' values – including energy independence, their support for clean energy, and their dislike of incumbent utilities."

Grid scale storage in Samoa (small grid scale), and Hawaii (still smallish, but 10x bigger again):

Tesla/SolarCity completes PV and battery system to power Samoan island

The 1.4 MW solar and 6 MWh battery system will supply power to the 600 residents of Ta'u, replacing the island's diesel generators.

The 1.4 MW PV plant that provides power for the system is accompanied by 60 Tesla Powerpack batteries, which together provide 6 megawatt-hours (MWh) of storage capacity. SolarCity states that this system will allow the island to stay powered for three days without sun, and recharge fully in seven hours.

Due to the high and unpredictable cost of electricity generation using imported fossil fuels, islands like Ta’u are leading the transition to 100% renewable energy. SolarCity is also currently installing a 13 MW PV plant and 52 MWh battery system on the island of Kaua’i in the Hawaiian chain, which will allow the island to get 25% of its power from solar in 2018 even though peak demand on Kaua’i comes after sunset.

Martyn1981

Home batts - so many I got bored half way through:-

Introducing CleanTechnica’s New Home Battery Overview Page

zeupater

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Home batts - so many I got bored half way through:-

Introducing CleanTechnica’s New Home Battery Overview Page

... just goes to show what the issues are which most wouldn't think relevant such as backup power vs daily cycling and standardisation of how many cycles you'd expect in a given number of years to allow daily cycle life expectancy comparison ... I know that there's a long way to go yet but even at this early stage it's obvious & essential that comparative listings should include apples or pears, not both ..

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

zeupater wrote: »

... just goes to show what the issues are which most wouldn't think relevant such as backup power vs daily cycling and standardisation of how many cycles you'd expect in a given number of years to allow daily cycle life expectancy comparison ... I know that there's a long way to go yet but even at this early stage it's obvious & essential that comparative listings should include apples or pears, not both ..

HTH
Z

Hiya Z, be worried, I was thinking the same!

Personally I'd want to see at least 3,500 cycles / 10 year warranty as an absolute minimum. 15-20 years would be much better and also 5,000 - 10,000 cycles.

In the list we seem to see just about every combination possible, which is partly why I gave up reading them as it became more a list of info, rather than a list of comparison.

I did have a brief moment of raised hopes when I saw the RESU by LG Chem ranging from: 9–9.5 kWh, for: €2,529 – €5,069.

But a quick check showed the range starts at 2.9kWh (not 9kWh), so a typo. Boh!

Still, interesting to see how many are available already, though prices are still painful. I hope the site does some sort of cost analysis in the future showing price reductions, so we can idea on the cost curve.

pinnks

Indeed. On a quick reckoning I could perhaps save about 100kWh per month (max) with a battery - and that is assuming I can get enough leccy to charge the thing in the winter months so probably skewed to summer months anyway. That's about £120 per year max saving. Some way to go until the maths pans out, even if the battery holds for 10 years!

Martyn1981

pinnks wrote: »

Indeed. On a quick reckoning I could perhaps save about 100kWh per month (max) with a battery - and that is assuming I can get enough leccy to charge the thing in the winter months so probably skewed to summer months anyway. That's about £120 per year max saving. Some way to go until the maths pans out, even if the battery holds for 10 years!

I'm in a similar boat, hoping to displace 900-1,000kWh of import. Winter limited by export, as low as 1kWh/day in December, but the summer is (ironically) limited too, this time by import, to around 2.5kWh/day.

My best months would be in the spring/autumn when average import is 4-5kWh, and average export exceeds this.

1,000kWh pa, plus around £30 in savings from switching to a no-standing-charge account, is still quite a small budget for a battery, so looks like I've still got a few more years of waiting impatiently, to go.

Martyn1981

Off-grid solar to help Myanmar bring electricity to all by 2030

Good news for one of the poorest countries in the world. Power to the people, or in some cases reduced diesel consumption for those with generators.

Martyn1981

Finnish scientists claim leaf-like polymer coating can deliver 17% solar cell output increase

Scientists working at the University of Oulu in Finland claim to have developed a new energy efficient nano structured polymer coating that can increase the energy output of solar cells by 17%.

Now, what would I do with an extra 750kWhs pa? Probably export them.

Martyn1981

Storage system using '2nd life' batts from Nissan.

Nissan and Eaton offer second life batteries to UK households

Looking at the website they're not exactly cheap at:-

The system will be provided to you completely ready to use, including cabling and installation by a certified professional, at a starting price of £3,200 / €4,000 for 4.2KWh.

michaels

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Storage system using '2nd life' batts from Nissan.

Nissan and Eaton offer second life batteries to UK households

Looking at the website they're not exactly cheap at:-

3k for 4kwh - does that mean the battery pack in my leaf is worth 18