Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Coastalwatch

Have to confess that I'd rather thought this means of battery storage was little more than a candidate for an April fools piece. However, it's attracted significant investment with the plans announced below and I wish them every success in bringing it to satisfactory conclusion. For longer term storage it certainly is a much needed addition to the renewable energy toolchest.

As it's a reversible process I wonder if they couldn't actually start with rust and turn it into iron.

Retired coal sites to host multi-day iron-air batteries

Solar and wind power have variability in their productive hours, as multi-day weather events can impact output. Therefore, multi-day storage that is cost effective is important in grid reliability.

This is the logic that supported the creation of Boston startup Form Energy’s iron-air batteries. The grid-scale batteries can store intermittent renewables-sourced electricity for 100 hours at costs competitive with conventional power plants.

Utility Xcel Energy announced it will install two 10 MW / 1,000 MWh iron-air batteries, one at a retired coal plant in Minnesota and another on a restored site in Colorado. Both projects are expected to come online in 2025 following regulatory approval.

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/01/26/retired-coal-sites-to-host-multi-day-iron-air-batteries/

Martyn1981

Bit of deja vu with this article, so apologies if a repeat. But I think the later part of the article is reminding me of another.

So, in this Dec 2022 article, S. Australia has been setting many records, including a 100% RE for ten days stretch. They hit 68% for 12 months, and 90% for Dec.

The reason this is so important, for all of us, is that this state (like most countries) don't have large amounts of hydro, like the several countries who have for a while now been almost completely RE (Norway, Brazil, Congo, Costa Rico etc).

S. Australia is achieving it with variable/intermittent RE, mainly PV and wind. And to make it even more impressive, they only have an interconnector to one other state (Victoria), and it was down for parts of last year. So add in the RE expansion, more batts under construction, and widening of interconnectors, and they are effectively proving the potential for most of us.

South Australia’s remarkable 100 per cent renewables run extends to over 10 days

South Australia has just chalked up what is undoubtedly a world first – a run of more than 10 consecutive days over which the average production of wind and solar accounted for 100 per cent of local demand.

No other gigawatt scale grid in the world has come close to this amount of “variable renewable energy”, or for such a long time.

Over that time, rooftop solar contributed 26.3 per cent – and dominated daytime production, sometimes up to 92 per cent of local demand.

The biggest contribution over the 10 days and a bit came from wind energy, with a 67.6 per cent share over that time, while large scale solar – heavily curtailed because of negative prices and the impact of rooftop PV – contribute just 6.1 per cent.

South Australia does not yet have enough storage to soak up the excess load, but that may be at least partially solved by the addition of at least three new big batteries – at Blyth, Bungama and Tailem Bend – and likely more – and the completion of the new link to NSW with an export capacity of up to 800MW.

During the 10-day period that averaged 100 per cent wind and solar, South Australia only had a minimum amount of gas generation – not for energy needs, but for “system strength” and other vital grid services.

This need is likely to be redundant in a few years when the new link to NSW is built, and as more “grid forming” inverters that mimic the properties of coal, gas and hydro, are constructed.

Then, we will see an even more remarkable landmark – one that so many people still insist is not possible – a gigawatt scale grid running for a period of time on wind and solar only, with no fossil fuel generation at all.

Raxiel

Martyn1981 said:

Nice to see an article on Mark Jacobson (Stanford University). His team produce the studies giving breakdowns on the mix of RE needed by each country for a 100% RE grid (and 100% RE energy).

The key point is really simple, we already have the technologies to do this (well 95%), and rolling them out will improve effiviencies and costs. The last part is long distance air travel and shipping.

I think it's so important to point out that we can now do this, and that getting on with it, is actually the cheaper option ... now.

‘No miracles needed’: Prof Mark Jacobson on how wind, sun and water can power the world

Wind, water and solar can provide plentiful and cheap power, he argues, ending the carbon emissions driving the climate crisis, slashing deadly air pollution and ensuring energy security. Carbon capture and storage, biofuels, new nuclear and other technologies are expensive wastes of time, he argues.

“Bill Gates said we have to put a lot of money into miracle technologies,” Jacobson says. “But we don’t – we have the technologies that we need. We have wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, electric cars. We have batteries, heat pumps, energy efficiency. We have 95% of the technologies right now that we need to solve the problem.” The missing 5% is for long-distance aircraft and ships, he says, for which hydrogen-powered fuel cells can be developed.

However, there are major barriers to a rapid rollout of a 100% renewable energy system, he says: “The No 1 barrier is that most people are not aware that it’s possible. My job is trying to educate the public about it. If people are actually comfortable that it’s possible to do, then they might actually do it.”

Of course the reason Bill Gates (and billionaires like him) advocates for new 'miracle' technologies, is that new tech means new inventions, which means new patents and new ways for a subset of the population to collect rent from everyone else.

Martyn1981

Just a quick update on Gravitricity and their idea to store energy by raising weights in mine shafts, or purpose built shafts. No idea how viable this idea is, but the flexibility is now being considered for another form of energy storage, H2. Using purpose built shafts, next to the need/user of H2*.

*H2 is a pain to transport. Trucks with tube trailers can move around 400kg at a time (weighing roughly the same full, or empty), and for an equal amount of energy, you'd need about 10 trucks to match a petrol tanker - 10 trucks all consuming energy!

Gravitricity appoints Gneiss Energy to lead £40 million raise to spearhead energy storage projects

Energy storage company Gravitricity has appointed Gneiss Energy to support the development of a £40 million funding drive to spearhead the creation of three demonstrator projects for its technology in the next five years.

Gravitricity's energy storage solution works by raising weights in a deep shaft – with disused mine shafts in particular being targeted by the firm – and releasing them when energy is required. Surplus renewable energy generation is expected to be predominantly used to lift the weights, reducing the need for curtailment and allowing that power to be stored for later grid requirements.

The energy storage firm recently announced a new product dubbed FlexiStore that incorporates hydrogen storage capabilities to maximise the output of its technology. With this, a single store would be capable of holding up to 100 tonnes of green hydrogen.

Gravitricity signs MoU with VSL for ‘goldilocks’ green hydrogen solution

This new partnership opens up the potential for storing green hydrogen at these sites as well, helping to develop the UK’s hydrogen economy and bolster the necessary storage required.

Gravitricity’s solution, dubbed FlexiStore, could provide an alternative form of large-scale hydrogen storage, with the firm having stated that it is more flexible than subterranean salt caverns given the lack of geographical specificity needed.

The company submitted a patent for turning its purpose-built shafts into pressurised energy stores for both hydrogen and heat storage in 2021, building on its previous gravity storage solution.

Within FlexiStore, each rock shaft would be six metres in diameter, 365 metres deep and lined with steel. A single store would be capable of holding up to 100 tonnes of green hydrogen.

Martyn1981

Not good news for coal generation in the US.

US renewable energy farms outstrip 99% of coal plants economically – study

Coal in the US is now being economically outmatched by renewables to such an extent that it’s more expensive for 99% of the country’s coal-fired power plants to keep running than it is to build an entirely new solar or wind energy operation nearby, a new analysis has found.

The plummeting cost of renewable energy, which has been supercharged by last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, means that it is cheaper to build an array of solar panels or a cluster of new wind turbines and connect them to the grid than it is to keep operating all of the 210 coal plants in the contiguous US, bar one, according to the study.

“Coal is unequivocally more expensive than wind and solar resources, it’s just no longer cost competitive with renewables,” said Michelle Solomon, a policy analyst at Energy Innovation, which undertook the analysis. “This report certainly challenges the narrative that coal is here to stay.”

The new analysis, conducted in the wake of the $370bn in tax credits and other support for clean energy passed by Democrats in last summer’s Inflation Reduction Act, compared the fuel, running and maintenance cost of America’s coal fleet with the building of new solar or wind from scratch in the same utility region.

markin

Engineering video on the Ritom Pumped-Storage Plant Project, Switzerland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AV2NcyX7pk

Coastalwatch

@markin Many thanks for posting, couldn't help but watch it through from start to finish. Hopefully we shall get an update once generation actually commences.

Martyn1981

This news piece caught my eye due to the 'co-location part'.

The PV (and wind) industry has said that they would consider adding storage to existing sites, or planned sites, as and when the storage becomes economical. So it looks (to me) like we may have moved into that phase of the RE growth story.

UK ROUNDUP: FRV, TagEnergy finance 366MWh, SSE acquires solar sites with co-location potential

SSE Energy Solutions has confirmed the acquisition of three solar sites in Nottinghamshire, England, from PV developer Gridmove.

The three solar projects will be located within Nottinghamshire’s largest district – Newark and Sherwood – at Foxholes, Knapthorpe and Muskham. These are currently being processed via a formal planning application.

SSE will explore the creation of battery energy storage in a nearby area Staythorpe. In doing so, the excess energy could be captured within the battery asset and thus provide a flexible solution to the grid.

Additionally, the use of co-location via the battery and solar projects, could provide “significant cost savings” by sharing one grid connection, a report by Cornwall Insight and national law firm Weightmans declared.

Exiled_Tyke

The headline isn't exactly about RE but there's some interesting analysis in here about the impact of the Ukraine war on RE growth and also, sadly, the dependency on coal.   

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/03/putin-russia-blackmail-europe-gas-supply-ukraine

Martyn1981

Actually ET, that article may well be the most important ever posted on this thread.

Yes some extra coal, but only as an emergency measure to combat price spikes. Now gas demand is falling, as RE gets supercharged, and all of (most?) Europe finds out what is actually possible. Russia may have gambled on its greatest generals coming to its rescue yet again (General's Janvier and Fevrier), but that's backfired and will not only reduce dependence on Russian gas, but also on all FF gas, sooner than otherwise will have happened.

At least some good will come from the invasion of Ukraine.