this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2024
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It sounds like it works really well. The physical size does sound quite large, but I'm not sure how that compares against other types of batteries.
It probably doesn't matter. This type of battery is not all that interesting for things like electric cars, rather more so for things like grid energy storage on a massive scale. Think 1000s of these in a large building, getting charged during the day with excess solar energy, releasing it into the grid at night. Stuff like this is what has been missing to make even better use of renewables.
Yeah that’s one thing I think doesn’t get much attention. We actually have a lot of solar in some major countries. In many areas, there’s too much and it’s wasted right now. The efficiency of the grid’s solar intake and distribution is often times worse than the solar panel efficiency themselves. If we can store and distribute that excess with the same efficiency of the panels, it would be a huge stress relief on many systems.
How about one of those in your basement or shack to charge your car overnight?
well its usually not in your basement, but should be outside in a home sized battery cage (similar to those used in parking lots to charge EVs). in a more ideal time period, itll just be another external installment like outdoor AC units. to get there, home energy storage has to get cheap enough so that people installing solar at home also opt for energy storage.
one of the big problems EV have is most charge at home at night when peak usage is at instead of the most opportune time, which is when the sun is up during working hours. Its why theres a movement to install charging stations at workplace buildings as a benefit to workers (no longer pay for "gas"). If the average home user had a battery wall, then you can just circumvent that problem alltogether.
I think that's one use case when having solar panels on your roof, this way you can also help make the grid even more distributed and resilient by having your own storage. Sometimes you might not even need the solar you can just take very cheap electricity from the grid during the day and sell it back in the evening or use it in the evening yourself
One of those cases where selfishness actually benefits others, just don't disconnect from the grid, that's a dick move if you have neighbors
If you have solar panels on your house, and your car isn't at home when that sun is shining, then that would be a good use of one of these for a residential application.