I think energy storage is a fascinating area. One where there are lots of new projects, both with incremental improvements and untried technologies. One where life-changing progress seems possible in the near future. For example, consumer electricity and heating in Australia should be effectively free when current promised tech is rolled out. Same in Scandinavia. Same in North Africa, given a lot of capital investment. Much (maybe most) industrial production and almost all data processing is going to adjust to the availability patterns of cheap energy in time and space.
There are huge engineering problems to be solved (not scientific ones as all tech is well understood). But massive improvements in how we regulate power and how resources are allocated are also needed.
In the last 20 years oil extraction was completely revolutionized by (mainly) mavericks and outsiders who believed in technological progress. Fortunes were made. Energy storage seems to offer a similar outlook, but working for humanity's ecological goals rather than against them.
(Not to have this debate but) when I see young tech-minded people who are enthused by cryptocurrency I want to shake them and point them towards the future of energy.
> For example, consumer electricity and heating in Australia should be effectively free when current promised tech is rolled out. Same in Scandinavia.
No. This will NOT happen and I have no idea what made you believe something as silly. Grids cost a lot of money, there is no "magic tech" around the corner to enable this. Demand flexibility is hard, not at all cheap and nobody knows what the practical potential even is.
I wonder if they're referring to how some countries are on the way to be able to generate 100% of their electricity through green methods and not need to buy it from other countries anymore, which would probably have positive effects for the population cost-wise.
Norway has been generating substantially more than 100% of their electricity demand from green sources (hydropower) for many decades. Some of the surplus is exported, but it's only in the past 3-4 years that the export capacity from the south towards Germany and Denmark has increased substantially.
So now the prices in the south are approaching those of the neighbouring countries, and everyone is up in arms about how electricity is suddenly expensive and politicians have been introducing subsidies. And politicians and grid operators alike are playing like they didn't know this was going to happen. Already one future export cable has been cancelled.
Arguably this is a populist reaction to a situation which is heavily in Norway's favor. Instead of thinking in terms of 'Danes and Germans taking our electricity', Norwegians should realize that they are able to export an extremely valuable resource, energy storage, to two countries which have lots of wind power and huge storage needs. In fact, as the cost of energy has risen massively in Germany for well-telegraphed reasons, costs have gone up in Norway (despite Norway being able to meet all its own needs with hydro) because the two systems are economically linked. But this means that the potential income from storage/balancing has also gone up massively. They should build more hydro with pumped storage and more export cables.
Of course, this means that Norwegian society has to make sure that the benefits flow from those who will make money exporting storage to those who are affected by higher prices. But as a high-trust, wealthy country, the only one to solve the resource curse, they should be capable of doing this. This is what I meant when I said that difficult problems of regulation and resource allocation go along with tech advances in this field.
I don’t understand this comment. We are in the early planning stages of a solar roof and battery solution for our home here in Australia, which we expect to provide us with 100% of our full time energy requirements for hearing, cooling, transport, and more - 24/7.
The capex (and payback time) for such a system installed today will be greater than some people will care for, but our opex will be effectively zero, and the capex costs are falling rapidly such that we are just earlyish adopters. So there’s every reason to think that the “electricity and heating in Australia should be effectively free” in the future, because that future is already here; “it’s just not evenly distributed”.
If you are off-grid and adapt everything to using solar and battery then you can get "free operating cost" with enormous costs and loss of reliability.
However if you are grid-tied then the power company is going to regulate the power output of your solar panels in order to avoid the "duck curve" problem. Meaning that during times of peak potential output the panels are effectively going to be turned off.
Also don't try to get fancy with copex versus opex stuff. It's nonsense for anything other than company valuation and depreciation, especially when it comes to taxes. It's meaningless for home owners. Costs is costs. Money is fungible.
While laudable that you want to get energy independence, if that is your actual goal... the chances of you ever recouping your costs over just using the power grid is extremely small.
And those expenses are real. That is in terms of real resources... raw material, manufacturing, and labor. Unless you can get those costs inversed then chances are extremely likely that you are consuming far more actual resources and creating greater "carbon footprint" than if you just stuck with grid power.
That is... if everybody did what you did then there would be significantly higher ecological impact than the current status quo.
1. If a large number of people are off-grid or effectively off-grid then the cost of consumer will have to decrease until it's comparable with the total cost (capital and maintenance) of private solar and battery.
2. The duck curve will be a non-issue when storage availability and cost has evolved sufficiently. Private storage can also force utilities' hand here - it makes sense to pass pricing signals through to some consumers, and they will be able to quickly react by buying storage (sometimes at levels which won't make strict economic sense) and/or moving demand.
3. The suggestion that the (admittedly significant) redundancy in the use of resources from people having their own solar and batteries is comparable to the ecological impact of fossil fuels is far, far off the mark.
>1. If a large number of people are off-grid or effectively off-grid then the cost of consumer will have to decrease until it's comparable with the total cost (capital and maintenance) of private solar and battery.
I don't think this is how it works. As the OP said, costs is costs. If a fossil fuel fired plant cost $X to build and run, you can't just hand-wave those costs away in the vein of competition. The costs will be passed on to the consumer.
Those privileged enough to have the option to build solar/battery can extract themselves from that market, but there will still be some left on the grid who will have to bear that cost. For example, renters and those too poor to afford the costs of solar will likely be stuck paying increased costs as the consumer base shrinks.
You make strong claims, use emotive terms and conclude with a very definite "..there would be significantly higher ecological impact than the current status quo", but you give no facts or figures, and it's not a good post.
> If you are off-grid and adapt everything to using solar and battery then you can get "free operating cost" with enormous costs and loss of reliability.
Well, it turns out that the costs are not at all enormous, and I don't understand why you think the reliability will be less. I've already had one major and several minor unplanned grid power outages since I moved here 6 months ago.
Are in-home batteries less reliable than the grid? I haven't heard that, and I don't know why they would be.
I think the payback time for the system I'm looking at (panels + batteries) will be ten years, but I'd much prefer to reduce my emissions than to save money through buying dirty (black coal) power from the grid. Of course there is the embodied energy and CO2 of the system and I haven't looked at that (yet). I'm still starting out.
That said, power prices are rising dramatically in Australia, and battery prices have been falling for years, so in 6-12 months time when I actually purchase the system, I think it's likely that the payback time will be significantly lower.
The point being that, at some point, the price will come down to the point where people will take out loans to buy these systems, because the loan repayments will be lower than the cost of buying power off the grid.
That's the opex/capex equation kicking in, of course, which I didn't think was trying to be fancy at all.
I mean, I wrote about how there were lots of interesting engineering problems between where we are now and this state. It is hard and it isn't cheap yet and I did not suggest otherwise. Perhaps saying "current promised tech" was confusing - I certainly did not mean "current planned tech" and should perhaps have said "current envisaged tech".
But there is no fundamental reason that future costs of energy in a place like Australia won't be comparable to the current costs of the grid only (if all generation were free). That is effectively free compared to today's prices.
This is why this field is fascinating to me - the potential benefits of progress which is theoretically quite easy (but maybe very hard in practice) is extremely valuable. Even if you don't think this end state is likely, it could still be very compelling to be involved in trying to get there.
Nuclear power promised "too cheap to meter", I'm not going to believe the same promise from renewables. Even in a low interest rate environment, capex is real and must be paid for. But yes, I have a set of solar panels, and in summer I get my already-paid-fox electricity, and the potential for this in sunny countries is huge.
> when I see young tech-minded people who are enthused by cryptocurrency I want to shake them and point them towards the future of energy
They are certainly one group working hard to make sure energy is never free.
Probably homes aren’t connected through a gas pipe though. You can even heat with gas in that case but need a lot of storage room for the gas then, so it’s pretty uncommon especially in cities.
The city gas network used for domestic gas stoves switched to biogas long ago. So there is still a gas network, but it's not using natural gas any more.
It's also not very large these days, so those who still use it will see ever more expensive subscriptions - which eventually will see it gone. Which, I guess, is just as well.
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[ 1.5 ms ] story [ 41.9 ms ] threadThere are huge engineering problems to be solved (not scientific ones as all tech is well understood). But massive improvements in how we regulate power and how resources are allocated are also needed.
In the last 20 years oil extraction was completely revolutionized by (mainly) mavericks and outsiders who believed in technological progress. Fortunes were made. Energy storage seems to offer a similar outlook, but working for humanity's ecological goals rather than against them.
(Not to have this debate but) when I see young tech-minded people who are enthused by cryptocurrency I want to shake them and point them towards the future of energy.
No. This will NOT happen and I have no idea what made you believe something as silly. Grids cost a lot of money, there is no "magic tech" around the corner to enable this. Demand flexibility is hard, not at all cheap and nobody knows what the practical potential even is.
So now the prices in the south are approaching those of the neighbouring countries, and everyone is up in arms about how electricity is suddenly expensive and politicians have been introducing subsidies. And politicians and grid operators alike are playing like they didn't know this was going to happen. Already one future export cable has been cancelled.
Of course, this means that Norwegian society has to make sure that the benefits flow from those who will make money exporting storage to those who are affected by higher prices. But as a high-trust, wealthy country, the only one to solve the resource curse, they should be capable of doing this. This is what I meant when I said that difficult problems of regulation and resource allocation go along with tech advances in this field.
The capex (and payback time) for such a system installed today will be greater than some people will care for, but our opex will be effectively zero, and the capex costs are falling rapidly such that we are just earlyish adopters. So there’s every reason to think that the “electricity and heating in Australia should be effectively free” in the future, because that future is already here; “it’s just not evenly distributed”.
If you are off-grid and adapt everything to using solar and battery then you can get "free operating cost" with enormous costs and loss of reliability.
However if you are grid-tied then the power company is going to regulate the power output of your solar panels in order to avoid the "duck curve" problem. Meaning that during times of peak potential output the panels are effectively going to be turned off.
Also don't try to get fancy with copex versus opex stuff. It's nonsense for anything other than company valuation and depreciation, especially when it comes to taxes. It's meaningless for home owners. Costs is costs. Money is fungible.
While laudable that you want to get energy independence, if that is your actual goal... the chances of you ever recouping your costs over just using the power grid is extremely small.
And those expenses are real. That is in terms of real resources... raw material, manufacturing, and labor. Unless you can get those costs inversed then chances are extremely likely that you are consuming far more actual resources and creating greater "carbon footprint" than if you just stuck with grid power.
That is... if everybody did what you did then there would be significantly higher ecological impact than the current status quo.
2. The duck curve will be a non-issue when storage availability and cost has evolved sufficiently. Private storage can also force utilities' hand here - it makes sense to pass pricing signals through to some consumers, and they will be able to quickly react by buying storage (sometimes at levels which won't make strict economic sense) and/or moving demand.
3. The suggestion that the (admittedly significant) redundancy in the use of resources from people having their own solar and batteries is comparable to the ecological impact of fossil fuels is far, far off the mark.
I don't think this is how it works. As the OP said, costs is costs. If a fossil fuel fired plant cost $X to build and run, you can't just hand-wave those costs away in the vein of competition. The costs will be passed on to the consumer.
Those privileged enough to have the option to build solar/battery can extract themselves from that market, but there will still be some left on the grid who will have to bear that cost. For example, renters and those too poor to afford the costs of solar will likely be stuck paying increased costs as the consumer base shrinks.
Well, it turns out that the costs are not at all enormous, and I don't understand why you think the reliability will be less. I've already had one major and several minor unplanned grid power outages since I moved here 6 months ago.
Are in-home batteries less reliable than the grid? I haven't heard that, and I don't know why they would be.
I think the payback time for the system I'm looking at (panels + batteries) will be ten years, but I'd much prefer to reduce my emissions than to save money through buying dirty (black coal) power from the grid. Of course there is the embodied energy and CO2 of the system and I haven't looked at that (yet). I'm still starting out.
That said, power prices are rising dramatically in Australia, and battery prices have been falling for years, so in 6-12 months time when I actually purchase the system, I think it's likely that the payback time will be significantly lower.
The point being that, at some point, the price will come down to the point where people will take out loans to buy these systems, because the loan repayments will be lower than the cost of buying power off the grid.
That's the opex/capex equation kicking in, of course, which I didn't think was trying to be fancy at all.
But there is no fundamental reason that future costs of energy in a place like Australia won't be comparable to the current costs of the grid only (if all generation were free). That is effectively free compared to today's prices.
This is why this field is fascinating to me - the potential benefits of progress which is theoretically quite easy (but maybe very hard in practice) is extremely valuable. Even if you don't think this end state is likely, it could still be very compelling to be involved in trying to get there.
> when I see young tech-minded people who are enthused by cryptocurrency I want to shake them and point them towards the future of energy
They are certainly one group working hard to make sure energy is never free.
Of course, this is fair. But there are fields where technology advances are so effective that meeting past needs is unmeasurably cheap.
For example, telephone calls are now too cheap to meter.
Oh? Isn't that what gas stoves use? And they exist in Stockholm, and is fairly common.
There are even new installs being done.