I don’t think that’s true, do you have sources for that? Because my understanding is that solar/wind is cheaper than natural gas, but battery storage makes it way more expensive at scale.
There’s a huge difference between day/night storage which is sufficient for most locations in the world that are somewhat closer to the equator, and seasonal storage. We have no good solution for seasonal storage at the moment.
Exactly. Day/night storage can probably be met (at least partially) by using EVs (i.e. arrive at work empty, recharge from solar, arrive at home full). But that’s not going to be enough to get through the winter in higher latitudes.
That’s why we need a reliable base load, and natural gas is very attractive because it’s:
- easier to build than nuclear
- way less polluting than coal
- compatible with existing supply lines
Battery storage is prohibitively expensive in many parts of the world, and there aren’t very many ready alternatives. I think we should be investing in nuclear power instead of utility grade battery backups, and we should be looking at EVs to help even out the day/night cycle.
What is your understanding based on?
Regarding production batteries might be more expensive, but they can be charged some thousand times without any additional cost
Just from looking at some government studies. This doesn’t necessarily compare longer-term costs, but it does give some direct comparisons between storage options.
I’m certainly no expert here, but just throwing out some rough estimates of battery degradation, it doesn’t seem to be cost-effective vs natural gas, which is already only slightly more expensive than solar. So solar plus battery storage seems to be significantly more expensive than natural gas.
It’s certainly more complex than that (i.e. you’d need less generation if battery backup is plentiful), but that’s the data I’m looking at.
But how can one consider natural gas? The whole point is to avoid getting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere?!
Yah, downvote the guy for asking for sources for a baseless claim. I have heavy doubts that battery storage is anywhere near as cost effective as NG turbines. I’d love to see some real numbers on that.
And I say this as someone with a house running on batteries and solar exclusively.
I guess it kinda depends on how and where you source your batteries.
There was something in Australia I think that was using old EV batteries for grid scale power storage. As EV adoption goes up eventually old batteries will get pulled from vehicles, and reusing them for grid or even home scale power storage is a great use.
Sure, but that’s a) going to take some time and b) not going to be very convenient. Pulling something designed for a car (e.g. built in to the frame) and putting it into something for the grid are very different design spaces, so it could end up being prohibitively expensive to retrofit these car batteries into the grid system. Each manufacturer is going to use a different form factor, potentially different voltages, different cooling systems, etc. It’s probably easier to break down the batteries and remanufacture them than to reuse them directly for grid storage.
What I do think could be a huge boon is to use cars at rest as storage. A lot of people leave their cars plugged in all day at work (peak generation), as well as at night (no generation), which is a pretty decent fit for a base level of supply. You’d basically drive to work mostly empty and get home mostly full, and you’d get a discount on your energy bill for allowing your EV to be used for energy storage. I don’t know if any utility companies are using them that way, but that’s a fantastic way to get a bit more use out of EV batteries.
