this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

So how does that work? Could you make money running a big energy-wasting heating coil?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

They shourd hurry up with district heating. It's the cheapest energy storage there is.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Do they have pumped hydro? Or maybe produce hydrogen intermittently with this surplus power...maybe sodium batteries will help with storage?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

That's the big, trillion-dollar question, right? Pumped hydro or air is the solution that definitely works, but air is extra lossy and hydro requires a huge reservoir. A battery system would be great, but Li-ion is expensive, so you need a new chemistry. For grid storage, density, hazard and even operating temperature and pressure are not strict requirements, only cost, so it seems likely they exist, and at least sodium is in the early stages of commercialisation already.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Oh no! Failing from success! /s

Free energy!

[–] [email protected] -3 points 3 months ago

Maybe if they keep buying petrol products from Russia then they can obtain enough grey hydrogen for a hydrogen economy. /s

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The only issue is they have not enough storage capacity for the excess.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

That's a global problem unfortunately.

We do not yet have effective and economical means of storing energy in grid scale quantities that are readily deployable near where that power is consumed.

It's a huge problem actually, the biggest one facing renewables like solar.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (2 children)

This is a problem I'd very much like governments to sink a bit of money into. Sure, we don't have 100% efficient energy storage, but we certainly have technology that does the job. Liquid air energy storage, fly wheels, thermal sand batteries etc, can be installed anywhere and are available right now. Not to mention pumped hydro if you have suitable terrain.

There's a lot of stuff that we could build, and honestly, we just need to build it, now, even if it's not profitable, or super efficient. There's a bunch of solar and wind around the world not being built, or curtailed because prices go negative when there's no one to store it.

The free market sucks. We need government intervention to do the things the profit motive won't.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Sure, we don't have 100% efficient energy storage, but we certainly have technology that does the job.

We only need about 40% overall efficiency to beat the theoretical limit of fossil fuel counterparts.

( <40% car engine, ≈40% power station )

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

but we certainly have technology that does the job.

Absolutely not if we're talking about nation-wide energy storage. The world's largest STEP, Hongrin-Leman, Switzerland, which occupies a considerable amount of space, has only a capacity of 100 GWh, which represents less than 1h15 of the winter night consumption of a country like France which consumes 70 GW at that time.

It would take 10 to sustain one night without wind, as you can have several each year. Then we would have to fill them entirely in one day for the next night which is impossible.

And that's just for the problem of capacity, such a STEP generates less than 500MW of power, so it would actually take 140 STEPs of that size to provide enough power.

And we're talking about today, where most cars and heating are still fossil-fueled and need to be replaced by electric.

Unless you find a technology that is now a miracle, running a country on solar and wind without hydro-electricity or nuclear is science fiction.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago (2 children)

This is the entire reason why countries like China are investing hard into ultra-high-voltage transmission lines.

While regions like Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia have immense wind and solar potential, getting that electricity to the population centers is challenging.

Selling electricity to Eastern Europe, to Northern Africa, hell even to the Middle East is an option if Europe is truly operating an electricity surplus.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Europe and the US already have UHV transmission lines. Grid interconnects and long-distance transmission have voltage between 500kV-1,000kV

China is still developing its national grid.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

Look at a map of the European power grid: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-European-high-voltage-transmission-grid-Source-Adapted-from-GENI-2011_fig1_281127145

Now repeat your claim again, but this time be serious.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Ironically pursuing high voltage low potential and low voltage high potential are required in equal amounts for future energy grids lol.

EDIT: Had some words flipped mb

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

What?

Potential means voltage in the context of electricity

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

A supercapacitor is defined by low voltage but high potential for energy storage, as in high capacitance. It's energy per unit of mass is far greater than regular batteries. Therefor we have low voltage storage solutions and high voltage energy distribution across a grid, which results in the witicism of the above comment.

If potential meant voltage in every context then we wouldn't need the word voltage.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Power being priced negative is awesome. We need more of it imo, make energy so abundant that it makes processes that were previously too energy-intensive viable, and enables a massive increase in both residential and grid storage capacity.

My opinion is that Na-ion batteries are the way for bulk grid storage and apartment/home storage nya.

They use hyper abundant materials and are now reaching the point of decent endurance, and if you arent bothered by them being heavy (as is the case for grid and residential storage), they're fairly comparable to Li-Ion without the usage of relatively rare Lithium.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, negative prices finally incentivize storage technologies such as battery storage.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

If you can actually get them. According to the article, it appears that an end user with his own battery system cannot actually get paid to store energy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (3 children)

How does it incentivize it?

The problem with energy storage isn't a lack of incentives, it's a lack of solutions. There are currently no proven, grid scale, economical, and robust energy storage solutions.

There are lots of storage solutions that work within limited geographical areas (ie. Pumped hydro). But past that it's a crap shoot.

Batteries are absolutely nowhere near the capacity or longevity needed for grid scale storage.

The largest battery storage system in the world is primarily used for grid leveling and emergency power. And would be depleted in minutes under its maximum load.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

The bigger the incentive the more money gets spent on funding the necessary R&D.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Looks like it is possible to do in California already today, for hours, not minutes: https://reneweconomy.com.au/deeper-longer-cleaner-big-batteries-extend-domination-of-californias-evening-demand-peaks/

The battery solutions on grid scale are available now. They need to be built and paid for. Negative prices might help motivate investors.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

That's pretty awesome ngl :p

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

TIL, thanks for the link!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

It is also an incentive to shift demand when there is plenty of renewable power: charge your car , do the laundry and so on

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