Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Coastalwatch

zeupater said:

Coastalwatch said:

silverwhistle said:

EricMears said:

There can be some spectacular price drops as new technology is embraced.  e.g.  I thought £12,500 quite reasonable for our 4kWp system in 2011 but well within 5 years prices of £6k were being quoted.

Or going a little further back,  colour TVs were only for the very well off in 1966 but within 5 years almost anyone could afford one.

Within two years actually! :-)  As for colour TVs I still had to do Saturday night babysitting to watch in 1972 as we didn't have one at home.

I'm waiting just a bit longer on domestic batteries.

Sorry to have to say that with the current fall in the pound and battery price increases prior to this I reckon you are going to need to be a little chuffing patient!

Our Inverter has been out for three weeks now with no indication of a likely repair/replacement date. Currently running on batteries only, charged on Octopus Go faster overnight tariff to 95%, down to 22% now and that's without any heating requirement. 

Thankfully there's a 9.5kWh Givenergy unit waiting to be hooked up just as soon as cables arrive!

Hi

There's plenty of movement possible on prices for batteries, it's just that current global demand for end products is outstripping supply by quite a margin ... 

For thought ...

• Tesla LFP battery long term supply contract with BYD widely reported to be $64/kWh. (~£60)
  
• MG4 Std range (51kWh) UK price incl VAT etc ~£26k, so ~£510/kWh incl free car!
• MG4 Long range (64kWh) UK price incl VAT etc ~£28.5k, so ~£450/kWh incl free car!
• MG4 ........ extra 13kWh costs ~£2.5k, so ~£200/kWh being charged to consumer ...
• Pylontech 4.8kWh battery, ~£1720incl VAT, so ~£360/kWh ...

Margins & opportunities come to mind! ..

Whilst pondering the above, if the current media narrative is that the pound is weak for whatever reason suits them at the time, then why hasn't the movement against (say) the Euro or the Chinese Yuan (both major product supply currencies for the storage market sector) been particularly significant ?! ...

.... could it simply be that the USD is doing what the USD (as the main global reserve currency) tends to do whenever there's a crisis of some form and investors are looking for a more stable shelter from financial storms .... again a supply & demand issue, more demand to buy dollars causes the USD to strengthen  

HTH - Z

Hi Zeup, I love your positivity and in many ways sincerely hope it becomes a reality. Sadly I don't have Elon's budget to buy copious quantities of batteries with which to negotiate a better price. But I would be interested to learn what the cost per kWh would be in order to get a Tesla for free. Sadly I can't afford one of those either, well not since the pound has shrunk anyway.

Going back four years since purchasing the Leaf and from memory storage batts were around £1k/kWh at a time when I got a free car with batt's @ £625/kWh so certainly prices have followed the downward trend you mention.

I particularly chose the Leaf because of it's ability for V2H/G but in spite of three attempts to enlist in trials for this there was always a reason why we couldn't take part. One of which was because the apparatus wasn't G100 compliant therefore risking us overstressing the supply cable. Another requiring us to take another vehicle on contract with no opportunity of owning come the close so you can perhaps appreciate I found it all rather depressing after having high hopes of a simple storage solution without the need for a storage battery.

I am still registered with Indira for the beta trial they are currently setting up but have little optimism of being accepted due to the many detailed answers they required, such as do you have Storage batteries, Car Charger, I'Boost and would I be prepared to remove them to which I answered no. Haven't heard back so possibly disqualified myself there.

The 9.5 kWh battery I'm waiting cables for came in at £310/kWh incl vat.

Afraid the global financial markets are rather beyond my comprehension but suspect the other countries you mention are less likely to exceed the level of borrowing the UK has currently undertaken. But I could well be wrong.

Having learned from one finance group this week that they see little alternative to batteries for grid storage applications in the next 5 to 10 years then together with motor industry demand for the same item seems unlikely to drop drastically in the near future.

Of course your optimism will be based upon figures as laid out above and I wonder if you also have access to an algorithm that might give us a clue regarding a timeline to when a more economic solution might arrive?

By the way I've had my three score and ten so please don't make it too long.

silverwhistle

zeupater said:

For thought ...

• 
  
• MG4 Std range (51kWh) UK price incl VAT etc ~£26k, so ~£510/kWh incl free car!

Margins & opportunities come to mind! ..

Well, I've just bought myself an MG4 because they offered me more for my ZS than I paid for it..  It does of course have V2L, so I could go round the neighbourhood when there's a long powercut with an adapter and three pin socket giving an hour of power to a few freezers to avoid spoilage. Now there's an opportunity! ;-)

QrizB

zeupater said:

There's plenty of movement possible on prices for batteries, it's just that current global demand for end products is outstripping supply by quite a margin ...

I bought a set of 16 of these earlier this year for US$753, which was roughly $160/kWh. It came through on my credit card as £577, about £120/kWh.

Today they're $1008, which is $210/kWh. At current exchange rates that would be around £930, £194/kWh. A big difference!

QrizB

Not sure if it counts as news but the current generation stats at Drax Electric Insights are quite impressive.

In the last 24 hours only 16% of our electricity has come from fossil fuels (almost all of that gas); 54% has been wind, 15% nuclear, 5% solar, 5% imports (I guess more wind and nuclear), 3% biomass, 1% hydroelectric.

zeupater

Coastalwatch said:

zeupater said:

Coastalwatch said:

silverwhistle said:

EricMears said:

There can be some spectacular price drops as new technology is embraced.  e.g.  I thought £12,500 quite reasonable for our 4kWp system in 2011 but well within 5 years prices of £6k were being quoted.

Or going a little further back,  colour TVs were only for the very well off in 1966 but within 5 years almost anyone could afford one.

Within two years actually! :-)  As for colour TVs I still had to do Saturday night babysitting to watch in 1972 as we didn't have one at home.

I'm waiting just a bit longer on domestic batteries.

Sorry to have to say that with the current fall in the pound and battery price increases prior to this I reckon you are going to need to be a little chuffing patient!

Our Inverter has been out for three weeks now with no indication of a likely repair/replacement date. Currently running on batteries only, charged on Octopus Go faster overnight tariff to 95%, down to 22% now and that's without any heating requirement. 

Thankfully there's a 9.5kWh Givenergy unit waiting to be hooked up just as soon as cables arrive!

Hi

There's plenty of movement possible on prices for batteries, it's just that current global demand for end products is outstripping supply by quite a margin ... 

For thought ...

• Tesla LFP battery long term supply contract with BYD widely reported to be $64/kWh. (~£60)
  
• MG4 Std range (51kWh) UK price incl VAT etc ~£26k, so ~£510/kWh incl free car!
• MG4 Long range (64kWh) UK price incl VAT etc ~£28.5k, so ~£450/kWh incl free car!
• MG4 ........ extra 13kWh costs ~£2.5k, so ~£200/kWh being charged to consumer ...
• Pylontech 4.8kWh battery, ~£1720incl VAT, so ~£360/kWh ...

Margins & opportunities come to mind! ..

Whilst pondering the above, if the current media narrative is that the pound is weak for whatever reason suits them at the time, then why hasn't the movement against (say) the Euro or the Chinese Yuan (both major product supply currencies for the storage market sector) been particularly significant ?! ...

.... could it simply be that the USD is doing what the USD (as the main global reserve currency) tends to do whenever there's a crisis of some form and investors are looking for a more stable shelter from financial storms .... again a supply & demand issue, more demand to buy dollars causes the USD to strengthen  

HTH - Z

Hi Zeup, I love your positivity and in many ways sincerely hope it becomes a reality. Sadly I don't have Elon's budget to buy copious quantities of batteries with which to negotiate a better price. But I would be interested to learn what the cost per kWh would be in order to get a Tesla for free. Sadly I can't afford one of those either, well not since the pound has shrunk anyway.

Going back four years since purchasing the Leaf and from memory storage batts were around £1k/kWh at a time when I got a free car with batt's @ £625/kWh so certainly prices have followed the downward trend you mention.

I particularly chose the Leaf because of it's ability for V2H/G but in spite of three attempts to enlist in trials for this there was always a reason why we couldn't take part. One of which was because the apparatus wasn't G100 compliant therefore risking us overstressing the supply cable. Another requiring us to take another vehicle on contract with no opportunity of owning come the close so you can perhaps appreciate I found it all rather depressing after having high hopes of a simple storage solution without the need for a storage battery.

I am still registered with Indira for the beta trial they are currently setting up but have little optimism of being accepted due to the many detailed answers they required, such as do you have Storage batteries, Car Charger, I'Boost and would I be prepared to remove them to which I answered no. Haven't heard back so possibly disqualified myself there.

The 9.5 kWh battery I'm waiting cables for came in at £310/kWh incl vat.

Afraid the global financial markets are rather beyond my comprehension but suspect the other countries you mention are less likely to exceed the level of borrowing the UK has currently undertaken. But I could well be wrong.

Having learned from one finance group this week that they see little alternative to batteries for grid storage applications in the next 5 to 10 years then together with motor industry demand for the same item seems unlikely to drop drastically in the near future.

Of course your optimism will be based upon figures as laid out above and I wonder if you also have access to an algorithm that might give us a clue regarding a timeline to when a more economic solution might arrive?

By the way I've had my three score and ten so please don't make it too long.

Hi

I think that the current issue actually lies with the manufacturing/assembly capacity of ESS units and the margins aspirations of the companies offering products as opposed to the bulk battery supply prices themselves ... if a company that makes ESS solutions can buy (in bulk) what effectively represents the vast majority of it's purchased component & materials cost at £60/kWh, then there's little argument for such high prices other than margin aspiration & installed production capacity, both of which are addressable by investment & competition ...

Earlier this year it was reported that, for the first time, Tesla were not battery supply constrained and that this applied to vehicles, Megapack & Powerwall production (eg - https://electrek.co/2022/09/12/tesla-access-all-the-batteries-it-needs-first-time/ ), in which case we could see the price/kWh of the Tesla ESS offering fall more in line with the stated intent when the Powerwall was first announced, and of course, battery manufacturing/supply costs have reduced considerably since then.

The situation regarding alleviating battery supply issues for ESS has already been addressed by Tesla in statements regarding ramping production (eg - https://electrek.co/2022/09/06/elon-musk-tesla-increasing-powerwall-availability/ ), which I would expect to be focussed on clearing existing Powerwall 2 backlogs, after which there'll be a tooling changeover to Powerwall 3 production (Spring next year ?) where supply pre-conditions (such as only taking orders for Powerwall+PV) will be removed and (hopefully!) prices fall dramatically ... Powerwall & some other ESS offerings listing at somewhere ~£250/kWh being a good possibility by mid next year if there's enough good will & proper competition ... then falling steadily as various economies of scale come into play ...

Just opinion, but HTH - Z

Coastalwatch

Just opinion, but HTH - Z

It certainly does Zeup and thank you.

As usual you have explained matters based upon fact, past instances and logic relating to other disruptive technologies in such a way that even I can understand.

I'm not disputing it at all, but if we are to successfully transition away from FF's, I am struggling to believe that global demand for batteries, both storage and transportation, will be satisfied within the next decade.

 I do have to confess that recent LiFePO4 batteries appear a more cost effective combination of materials and less of a fire hazard too, even if it doesn't quite match the energy capacity of Lithium Ion. Maybe other more readily available material combinations will also arrive on the scene alongside more streamlined processes to undercut those currently in existence.

Unless there's a sudden change in attitude then it will certainly be an interesting time as we race along the path to oblivion the majority of mankind appears to be mapping out for us under the guise of economics and insatiable demand for a growing GDP!

zeupater

Coastalwatch said:

[ ... ]

... I do have to confess that recent LiFePO4 batteries appear a more cost effective combination of materials and less of a fire hazard too, even if it doesn't quite match the energy capacity of Lithium Ion. Maybe other more readily available material combinations will also arrive on the scene alongside more streamlined processes to undercut those currently in existence.
[ ... ]

Hi

LFP (LiFePO4) batteries are actually Lithium Ion cells, the effective difference between cell chemistries are mainly related to the materials used in the anodes & cathodes. The main difference between LFP & NMC/NCA etc is that Iron is far more abundant in the earths crust than other suitable metals such as Nickel, Manganese & Cobalt, so the cost & availability of extraction isn't affected as much by the additional demand for battery manufacturing, obviously resulting in smaller supply/demand disruption, so long term low material prices as manufacturing capacity increases ....

The downside of LFP isn't really capacity, it's energy density. For static storage this doesn't make much difference as the additional weight for a given storage capacity has little impact other than the ESS box in the corner weighing ~40% more per kWh. ...

It's only really when you're looking to increase motive efficiency or maximising acceleration that the mass of the battery becomes an engineering solution issue ... the problem so far is that the majority of automotive companies have been driven towards the performance end of the spectrum as opposed to unit cost, but most are now starting to see the error of their ways (including Tesla etc) and are offering battery chemistries to suit application.

In conclusion, ensuring that there's a lower risk to future material supply chains by focussing on abundant materials should result in fewer bottlenecks & price shocks, so the ability to ramp production to whatever scale it would need to be should simply be related to installed manufacturing capacity & investment ...

HTH - Z 

Martyn1981

I think the massive shift to LFP (outside of China) has something to do with Chinese patents expiring in 2022, so really good news. Also LFP batts are supposedly far more tolerant of abuse than Lithium ternary batts, with some speculation that they will last 3x as long (3x as many cycles).

That might mean, though I'm trying not to get too excited, that for stationary battery roles, where weight and volume aren't important, then these cheaper batts, may also give a 3x improvement in OPEX. I admit I may be confusing myself, but if their cost is spread over 3x as many cycles, then part of their cost per kWh (relating to purchase price and degradation) will be around 1/3rd. Really promising.

As you say Z, Tesla has been putting LFP in their standard range vehicles for a while now, since the larger volume is still fine v's the space designed to accommodate longer range (larger) packs.

Plus no cobalt, which also helps to make them cheaper and less controversial.

Almost certain that the ~65% increase in size and weight of the new Tesla Megapacks, v's the roughly 50% increase in energy to 3.9MWh, is a result of a shift to LFP.

And we are still in the early days of battery development, so to speak.

Martyn1981

Here's Chris Goodall's weekly Carbon Commentary Newsletter.

[If I'm reading number 9 correctly, then if all of the current proposed utility scale PV in the US was to be deployed, then PV generation (utility side PV) would increase from the current 3.9% of US leccy supply to ~21%. Wow. Numbers are fun.]

Industry news

Things I noticed and thought were interesting

Week ending Newsletter 2nd October
 
1, Cheaper EVs. EVs are still expensive when compared to direct petrol equivalents in most markets. That’s partly because they are highly sophisticated machines, packed with gadgets and still difficult to assemble. Tata Motors has gone the other direction, endeavouring to produce an EV for the Indian market that comes closer to the prices of conventional cars. Its $10,000 new model moves well into the standard price range of the Indian market and represents a one third reduction on the cost of the next cheapest electric car. Of course China has EVs that are cheaper still and will eventually be exported in large quantities. In Europe, Citroen made a plausible attempt at a EV that begin to appeal to the widest market with the release of a concept vehicle that may retail at about €25,000 and offers up to 10 km travel per 1 kWh of power use, a radical improvement on the current industry average. But its appearance will take some time to get used to. 
 
2. Regenerative agriculture. Pepsi and agricultural ingredients giant ADM launched a plan to convert about 800,000 hectares to ‘regenerative’ farming. This means reducing chemical inputs, minimising soil disturbance and ensuring that the ground is covered with growing plants for as much as the year as possible. The intention is to increase carbon storage in the soil and reduce fertiliser use, saving greenhouse gas emissions. This is a big project: 800,000 hectares is almost 3% of the total agricultural area of France. The ambition is to reduce net emissions/increase carbon storage by almost 2 tonnes a year per hectare. This is a tough target; 1 tonne is usually seen as achievable. Two things immediately strike me. First, if regenerative agriculture is done at a large enough scale, it could by itself bring many countries to close to ‘net zero’. But, second, that we still have very little knowledge of even how to measure soil carbon changes reliably. 

3, Simple hydrogen manufacture. It may be that making hydrogen from water will not require electrolysis. Pure aluminium is sufficiently reactive to strip oxygen from water to make aluminium oxide, and giving off hydrogen. But the oxide coats the aluminium, blocking further reaction. Scientists at the University of California Santa Cruz have found a way of returning the aluminium to its pure state, making it available again for taking oxygen out of H20. The experiment uses gallium, a rare chemical element that is expensive but can be reused multiple times. No-one yet knows whether hydrogen can be produced at competitive costs using this approach. (Thanks to Thad Curtz)
 
4, Solar thermal. A new type of power station operates in the state of Victoria, Australia. It combines solar photovoltaics with an unusual type of thermal storage. PV can only capture a fraction of the energy from the sun. The rest can be turned into heat. In the Australian power plant it is stored as hot water for use when electricity is in short supply. This is then used to turn liquid ammonia into gas, turning a turbine to make power. This experiment is still at an early stage and has been very costly to create, implying a high price for the power it generates. But it does have the huge advantage of being able to deliver electricity when it is needed and may eventually be cheaper than batteries for long-term storage.

5, Australia power production. Last week’s newsletter covered the Korean plans for hydrogen exports from the state of Queensland in Australia. This week the state made a further impressive announcement about its wider decarbonisation plans. These include an intention to build the world’s largest pumped hydro station and commission enough solar capacity on rooftops to comfortably cover all electricity demand in the middle of the day. (South Australia already covers 100% of demand with rooftop solar occasionally). I was particularly struck by the intention to get a hydrogen gas turbine operating in a trial and to eventually convert the remaining coal-fired power stations to hydrogen. The Queensland statement is detailed and bold; other administrations around the world should follow
 
6, Finnish synthetic fuels. German investor Prime Capital said it had partnered with a Finnish developer to build 600 MW of renewables to power a green hydrogen and methane plant in Finland. The interesting aspect of this deal is the incorporation of synthetic methane (the main ingredient of natural gas) into the venture. The methane can be piped into existing networks, replacing Russian gas. But it will be 2026 before the first output comes to market.
 
7, Decarbonisation of aviation. Much excitement this week about the news of a short trial flight of the Eviation electric airplane in the US. This plane will offer emissions free flight for ranges typically of 150-250 miles (240-400 km) at a speed of around 300 miles/480 km per hour. The capacity seems to be 9 passengers but the key market may be short distance valuable freight. This is a major innovation but its significance should not be over-estimated. Even if all aviation up to 400 miles (620 km) was electrified, not just small passenger aircraft, it would reduce aviation emissions by only about 9%. Realistically, small electric passenger planes will only ever have a marginal impact on greenhouse gases from aviation. An article in Nature points out that using low carbon aviation fuels, such as synthetic kerosene made from green hydrogen, will reduce CO2 emissions (and should result in small fare increases of around 15%). However the extra greenhouse effect arising from non-CO2 impacts of burning fuels at high altitude will prove much more difficult to remove, with the Nature study commenting that its best case only sees a reduction of around a half to two thirds of these effects.

8, CO2 capture. Belgium and Denmark agreed to cooperate on Project Greensand, an important carbon capture project. The petrochemicals giant INEOS is at the centre of the scheme. CO2 will be collected at the company’s Zwijndrecht plant in Belgium, which makes an important raw material for the plastics and other industries. The intention is to then compress the CO2 and insert it into sealed shipping containers at 5 degrees Celsius. The containers will be taken by truck to the port of Antwerp, loaded onto a platform supply vessel and then taken to INEOS’s Nini oil platform off the Danish coast. The Nini field will have been converted from oil and gas production to carbon storage of up to 8 million tonnes a year.  At the platform the CO2 from the containers will be piped into the old reservoir. There is much to admire about this project but the cost and complexity of the scheme make it look almost impossibly difficult. It cannot make good financial sense to move large quantities of compressed CO2 in relatively small shipping containers over long distances before piping it into the ground.
 
9, US solar. Berkeley Lab produced its exceptionally informative annual summary of developments in solar in the US. (The full report can be found as a PDF at the bottom of the web page).  Among the findings were a) the average levelised cost of solar in the US – before tax credits - is now $33 a MWh, down an average of 16% a year since 2010 b) the solar electricity price is now ‘often competitive’ with wind and ‘with the cost of burning fuel in existing gas-fired generators’ c) utility-scale solar now produces 3.9% of US electricity from about 150 GW of capacity d) the queue of solar projects waiting for connection is now 674 GW, or four and a half times current installed solar farms e) About 40% of these schemes propose to include on-site batteries f) about 90% of new installations in 2021 used some form of tracking of the sun’s position and the use of trackers increases the capacity factor of the solar farm by 5% (thus increasing from, for example, 20% to 25%). 
 
10, Electric trucks. At last week’s major industry show in Hannover, Germany, Volvo Trucks did not exhibit a single non-electric vehicle. Reports say that the exhibition was dominated by electric trucks from all manufacturers. Scepticism about the future of battery long-distance freight is evaporating. One news report said ‘it was hard to spot a diesel burner .. in the show’.

silverwhistle

Martyn1981 said:

As you say Z, Tesla has been putting LFP in their standard range vehicles for a while now, since the larger volume is still fine v's the space designed to accommodate longer range (larger) packs.

As I understand it my standard range MG4 (still rated a decent 218 miles) is the same chemistry and differs from the long range.

As a purpose built design it doesn't really suffer from the lower energy density and I really notice the efficiency improvement from my old ZS which was a converted ICE design (with the aerodynamics of a brick).