On-grid domestic battery storage

shavy65

Solarchaser wrote: »

Hi, what I mean is if the draw on the grid suddenly took all the heating requirements that we at the moment use gas for, then there would be a lot more demand placed on the grid.
To counter this, more gas and coal power stations would be fired up and so the grid mix of power would become much dirtier, whereas if you were to take Southern Scotland (where I live) right now it's only 4% gas, in comparison east Midlands is 78% gas.

In addition the grid as it stands would be highly unlikely, even with all the dirty power stations running at full strength, to meet the demand, which means it would fall over... ie black outs and brown outs.

The best way (in my opinion) to combat this is to keep bringing on sokar and wind farms while moving heating requirements gradually to electric.

I hope that makes sense.

Understood, cheers pal :beer:

ABrass

Solarchaser wrote: »

Wouldn't it be nice if we could all switch to all electric and no oil or gas overnight.... maybe, but that's not possible and if we did the grid would become much dirtier and likely fall over, achieving the opposite effect.

It makes far more sense to gradually switch as a country / continent / planet and that needs political will all of which Martyn has pointed out and you rail against....

It not only makes more sense, which I agree it does, but it's not physically possible to do it overnight. There were about 2.5 million EVs sold last year world wide. In the UK there were 2.3 million new vehicles sold. If we grabbed every single EV in the world we'd just about to replace the number of ICE vehicles sold, ignoring the 30 million plus already roaming about and ignoring the fact that other nations want them too.

For wind power we've got goals of having 30GW of capacity by 2030(?), Last year the world installed around 60GW. So that's much better news, just one half the world's supply of turbines.

These massive changes can't be done overnight. Which is why it's so important to get the changes started as early as possible to work the links out. And why it's a silly idea to listen to the line of argument that says: 'lets not bother with X yet as Y pollutes more, so we should sort Y first and then look at X'.

Martyn1981

Solarchaser wrote: »

Martyn represents some uncomfortable truths for me, as I really do enjoy the sound of a gas guzzler on the limits, but realising we need to move away from oil doesnt mean I need to stop driving my deisel car now, nor my petrol fun car now, and to suggest as much is what lessens the impact of what you state.

For me it's a lazy yankee V8 just ticking over, I simply adored the sound of my 81 Trans-Am (hence the account name).

Just in case anyone thinks I'm lecturing them, I'm not, not at all. In fact the articles and news I post is as uncomfortable for me too.

I do believe that as individuals we all need to do our bit, and hopefully my bit is trying to counter any denial, FUD and spin posted on here, but to win and WIN big, it has to change from the top, and that means support for RE, support for BEV's, support for the necessary infrastructure, and before very long support for storage of all scales, and that really needs government policies.

So that's why I try to promote faster global action and explain why such action is actually a good thing, after all, we all know there's a problem, we all know what the solutions are, and now it's become clear that those solutions are actually better than what they will replace, and as always, the cost of action is less than the cost of inaction ...... seems like a no-brainer to me.

Peace out.

Martyn1981

ABrass wrote: »

These massive changes can't be done overnight. Which is why it's so important to get the changes started as early as possible to work the links out. And why it's a silly idea to listen to the line of argument that says: 'lets not bother with X yet as Y pollutes more, so we should sort Y first and then look at X'.

Please don't laugh, I'm opening up here, and about to say something embarrassing, but when I think of transport I actually can't help smiling these days.

I think it's because the problem was getting me down before, but now it's sorted*, and best of all everything slots together so nicely, we have (virtually) unlimited RE leccy generation potential so cleaning our grid is inevitable. That then leads to clean transport with BEV's, which are now proving themselves to be better and more economical than ICEV's (just), and the scaling up of BEV's is addressing the intra-day storage side of higher penetrations of RE on the grid, through battery development and cost reductions.

In fact, the alternative to BEV's, fuel cell vehicles, which may be necessary for heavy freight, air travel etc, also help to develop longer term storage solutions for the grid, and even bio-fuels for space heating where heat pumps aren't the solution, or retro-fitting is taking too long.

The beauty of how all the parts interlink and cross support each other is something that I simply can't stop smiling at when I think about it. I'm sure it'll wear off eventually.

We are taking action about 3 decades too late, but we are taking action, and winning (or at least losing less badly).

*Sorted in the sense that the solution is viable, cost effective and popular (when tried), so it's an inevitable victor.

GreatApe

Batteries have a small place for improving the productivity of the grid and as frequency stabilisation and possibly to meet about 3h of peak demand. For the UK this means something like 10GWh might have justification because it acts more than storage but has those side benefits too

Likewise batteries at solar farms or wind farms might make sense as they would allow higher productivity of the transmission and converter stations and grid connections

Beyond that batteries make little to no sense
They are net energy consumers
It's better to just deploy wind farms wide and far to lower correlation
To build wind farms with higher CFs
And to use interconntors to export excesses and import other countries excesses

Exporting excess can be as low as 2% loss
Storing that excess for use later us at least 5-10x as big losses

A £1 billion investment can build a 1.4GW interconntor say to Norway
Such a line can act as a HUGE seasonal battery
Exporting for 6 months = 6,000 GWh of storage which can then be imported for 6 months

£1,000,0000,0000 / 6,000,000,000 KWh = 17p / KWh of storage and it will last 50+ years
Batteries by comparison cost in excess of £170/KWh and aren't guaranteed to last 50+ years
An interconntor will probably last hundreds of years but if decommissioned can be recycled

The two are not comparable at all.
There is a 1000 X difference in price

The solution to variable output is interconntors and cheap affordable OCGTs/CCGTs
And the EU knows this Which is why so many interconntors are under construction and more planned

The UK alone is completing 2 big ones this year has has more under construction and planned

Wind and solar will become significant global primary energy contributors
But it won't happen quickly
It's a 30 year process
In the sort term fossil fuel use is likely to keep going up as the poor countries become less poor

GreatApe

ABrass wrote: »

It not only makes more sense, which I agree it does, but it's not physically possible to do it overnight. There were about 2.5 million EVs sold last year world wide. In the UK there were 2.3 million new vehicles sold. If we grabbed every single EV in the world we'd just about to replace the number of ICE vehicles sold, ignoring the 30 million plus already roaming about and ignoring the fact that other nations want them too.

For wind power we've got goals of having 30GW of capacity by 2030(?), Last year the world installed around 60GW. So that's much better news, just one half the world's supply of turbines.

These massive changes can't be done overnight. Which is why it's so important to get the changes started as early as possible to work the links out. And why it's a silly idea to listen to the line of argument that says: 'lets not bother with X yet as Y pollutes more, so we should sort Y first and then look at X'.

Plug in hybrids make more sense

Of the top 10 selling cars in the UK only 2 cost more than £18,000 and those two are not much more (eg one of the two over £18k is the A class which is £21k). The average price of the top 10 selling cars is closer to £16,000 and the actual best selling car is below £14,000

I don't see how full EVs will be able to displace these top 10 models
The Tesla model 3 while a good car is nowhere near the price point of the too 10 best selling cars
Something like the e golf is closer in price at £26,500 but that's still much more than even the most expensive car on the too 10 and it's £10,000 more than the average price of the too 10 and that car is a crippled 90 mile range on the motorway u wouldn't accept less than 120 miles and ideally 150 miles on the motorway

I think hybrid tech is more likely

Right now it costs about £4,500+VAT to turn a normal ICE model into a 30-60 mile plug in model (depending on the size/class of the particular model).

If battery tech can fall in price 50% it makes sense to turn every model into a plug in model
Something like a polo or Corsa or fiesta all bug sellers all £14,000 or less could become below £17,000 plug in hybrids with 50 mile range. That would make them 90-99% electric at affordable prices

With 12KWh batteries it would also mean you can build 5 of these for 1 full BEV so they can ramp up my h more rapidly

GreatApe

Solarchaser wrote: »

and that needs political will all.

It's not about political will It's about economics
If the world ran on will there would be no poverty no hardship no crime
The world runs off science technology productivity and economics, not willpower

If you want wind and solar to take over you need their prices to get close to or ideally below conventional electricity generation this seems possible now.

For heating it's much much much harder as it's 3p gas Vs average 16p electricity

For transport plug in hybrids will probably be economic Vs ICE by 2025 and they can solve 90% of transportation miles from petrol/diesel to electric

Overall I expect wind will become the world's #1 source of electricity by 2050 followed by solar and then hydropower. These three can certainly take up 70% of worldwide electricity generation. That would be 70% of heating transport and conventional electricity needs but it will be a 30-50 year process

That's a massive success you don't need 100% to claim it's a sucess
Those three renewables providing 70% of primary energy needs is amazing
The other 30% can be a mix of nuclear biomass and fossil fuels

I don't really think global warming is a net negative
It if it is a big net negative the mix above might even be preferable to 100% green
In that 70% renewables 10% nuclear 20% biomass might be a way to do negative carbon emmissions by doing CCS on the 20% of biomass generation. Especially for depleted gas deposits both shale and conventional. The used up methane can be replaced by CO2 generation from biomass generation

It wouldn't even take long ~50 years of CCS at 20% of energy needs of 2050 would recover almost all the man made emmissions into the atmosphere. But imo that would be a very dangerous experiment to run. It's probably best to not try force co2 below 400ppm

orrery

GreatApe wrote: »

It's not about political will It's about economics

I can see some point there, but overall I disagree.


We need political will to introduce a carbon tax, to set a realistic FIT subsidy, to accelerate rollout of EV charging infrastructure, to remove tax credits for carbon prospecting, to stop cancelling the petrol price escalator, to remove the effective ban on land-based wind, to reintroduce the zero-carbon requirement that was cancelled by the Tories on all new houses from 2017, to remove VAT on renewable projects ...



If we were to get those things in place, the economics would look much more attractive.

chamelion

Hi folks,

some advice please. Ideally I'm trying to get a luxpower 5k AC given price difference between that and the 3K AC is minimal - although being told that I'd have to get DNO approval to get this inverter for managing my batteries?

Is that right or am I confused somewhere?

EVandPV

chamelion wrote: »

Hi folks,

some advice please. Ideally I'm trying to get a luxpower 5k AC given price difference between that and the 3K AC is minimal - although being told that I'd have to get DNO approval to get this inverter for managing my batteries?

Is that right or am I confused somewhere?

Yes, pretty sure any generation source above 3.6kw needs approval.