The Alternative Green Energy Thread

Cardew

ABrass said:

Cardew said:

QrizB said:

(Just thinking out loud, a 20' shipping container full of batteries contains 800kWh. A modern container ship holds 20,000 containers so a single vessel would make a 16GWh battery. That's the size of array you're looking at to make a "battery storage power station" worthy of the name. At current battery prices of $100/kWh it would cost £1.6Bn.)

Interesting discussion.

The security implications for guarding these 'battery storage power stations' are huge.

The security implications for guarding nuclear power stations are huge.

I doubt QrizB is suggesting using an actual boat, just giving an idea of scale. So in that case it'd be the cost to guard a lot of shipping containers in piles.

No I didn't think he was suggesting a boat! A pile of containers X rows wide, Y rows deep and Z rows high would take most of the stored power to keep itself cool!!

'We have a fault/fire in container No 17,698, it is in row Z, line R, and two from the bottom of a stack of fourteen high - please fix it!'

Sounds like Trump would have suggested it as a solution.

ABrass

Cardew said:

ABrass said:

Cardew said:

QrizB said:

(Just thinking out loud, a 20' shipping container full of batteries contains 800kWh. A modern container ship holds 20,000 containers so a single vessel would make a 16GWh battery. That's the size of array you're looking at to make a "battery storage power station" worthy of the name. At current battery prices of $100/kWh it would cost £1.6Bn.)

Interesting discussion.

The security implications for guarding these 'battery storage power stations' are huge.

The security implications for guarding nuclear power stations are huge.

I doubt QrizB is suggesting using an actual boat, just giving an idea of scale. So in that case it'd be the cost to guard a lot of shipping containers in piles.

No I didn't think he was suggesting a boat! A pile of containers X rows wide, Y rows deep and Z rows high would take most of the stored power to keep itself cool!!

'We have a fault/fire in container No 17,698, it is in row Z, line R, and two from the bottom of a stack of fourteen high - please fix it!'

Sounds like Trump would have suggested it as a solution.

That's not how anyone stacks crates. Even in shipping ports where space is at a premium.

But you're right, it'd be laid out flat just like every other batter farm now. And it'd need minimal security, because it's surprisingly difficult to steal shipping containers wired up to HVDC wires without someone noticing.

shinytop

How would the costs of a renewable + storage package compare to a new nuclear power station.  That is, to be to be able to generate the same amount of constant power with a comparable probability of success? Just wondering out loud...

ABrass

Hinckley is £92.50 and Offshore wind is around £40 now (who knows how much it will cost in 2026, let alone when it actually gets finished) . The storage would have to be economic at £52.50 to break even. But you'd have to decide how long that storage needs to cover you for to work out what storage you need.

Cardew

ABrass said:

Cardew said:

ABrass said:

Cardew said:

QrizB said:

(Just thinking out loud, a 20' shipping container full of batteries contains 800kWh. A modern container ship holds 20,000 containers so a single vessel would make a 16GWh battery. That's the size of array you're looking at to make a "battery storage power station" worthy of the name. At current battery prices of $100/kWh it would cost £1.6Bn.)

Interesting discussion.

The security implications for guarding these 'battery storage power stations' are huge.

The security implications for guarding nuclear power stations are huge.

I doubt QrizB is suggesting using an actual boat, just giving an idea of scale. So in that case it'd be the cost to guard a lot of shipping containers in piles.

No I didn't think he was suggesting a boat! A pile of containers X rows wide, Y rows deep and Z rows high would take most of the stored power to keep itself cool!!

'We have a fault/fire in container No 17,698, it is in row Z, line R, and two from the bottom of a stack of fourteen high - please fix it!'

Sounds like Trump would have suggested it as a solution.

That's not how anyone stacks crates. Even in shipping ports where space is at a premium.

But you're right, it'd be laid out flat just like every other batter farm now. And it'd need minimal security, because it's surprisingly difficult to steal shipping containers wired up to HVDC wires without someone noticing.

Earlier post - 'The security implications for guarding nuclear power stations are huge.'

The stacking was for 20,000 containers on a ship!

Regarding security, it is probably even more difficult to steal a nuclear power station!

shinytop

ABrass said:

Hinckley is £92.50 and Offshore wind is around £40 now (who knows how much it will cost in 2026, let alone when it actually gets finished) . The storage would have to be economic at £52.50 to break even. But you'd have to decide how long that storage needs to cover you for to work out what storage you need.

The length of time to make the supply 9X% guaranted, where 9X is same as for Hinckley? 

QrizB

Not exactly news but I've been at home today with a Gridwatch window open on my laptop. It's been quite interesting to hear the storm blowing by outside and watch the national wind power generation rise from about 2GW this morning to 5.5GW now. If the weather forecast is at all reliable the weather should get to the North Sea wind farms in time for the evening peak.

OTOH it's not been a great day for solar ...

Useful links:

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=0,51,1528

JKenH

We see much discussion of the staggeringly low LCOE of renewable energy but the IEA has recognised that this does not represent the true value of differing generation technologies to the grid. 

In order to complement the LCOE approach and enable a more system specific cost comparison, the IEA has developed a methodology to adjust the costs by a system value component known as the value adjusted LCOE (VALCOE). It modifies the LCOE of an individual technology in a particular electricity system according to its contribution to enabling all aspects of securely operating the system. Crucially, the calculated results reflect the value in existing, i.e. brownfield systems and their possible future development.

The results illustrate that a technology’s plant-level generating costs can vary significantly from its value to the system. The importance of taking this into account is especially striking when considering variable renewables: solar PV units show a high correlation in the output of individual plants resulting, in the analysed scenarios, in a significant reduction of the generation value with increasing shares. Curtailment during hours of high production is an additional issue and may in practice reduce load factors and increase LCOE compared to reported values. This would be taken into account in the system analysis. By contrast, the output of wind plants is less correlated among individual units and thus its loss in value is less even as its share increases. At current levels of capacity, the impact of correlation is still limited in many markets, but it may rise if ambitious renewable targets are realised and relative shares increase.

IEA (2020), Projected Costs of Generating Electricity 2020, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-electricity-2020

https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/ae17da3d-e8a5-4163-a3ec-2e6fb0b5677d/Projected-Costs-of-Generating-Electricity-2020.pdf

Cardew

This paragraph from the report will not be welcomed by some!

'Renewable energy costs have continued to decrease in recent years and their costs are now competitive, in LCOE terms, with dispatchable fossil fuel-based electricity generation in many countries. The cost of electricity from new nuclear power plants remains stable, yet electricity from the long-term operation of nuclear power plants constitutes the least cost option for low-carbon generation.'

EricMears

Cardew said:

This paragraph from the report will not be welcomed by some!

'Renewable energy costs have continued to decrease in recent years and their costs are now competitive, in LCOE terms, with dispatchable fossil fuel-based electricity generation in many countries. The cost of electricity from new nuclear power plants remains stable, yet electricity from the long-term operation of nuclear power plants constitutes the least cost option for low-carbon generation.'

Guess the authors weren't aware of Hinkley Point ?