I keep telling people, production isn’t the problem in most national grids. The issue is distribution. Power plants operate on-demand. That means when you flip on your light switch, some power plant somewhere has to spin just a little bit more faster to account for you turning on the light. And when you turn it off, it has to spin just a little bit slower.
There’s no buffer for the in-between. We have the same issue with water pipes. The pumps pump the water out at some fixed rate and everyone uses the water at some variable rate. The difference is that with water we have something that acts as a buffer, we call them water towers. So when someone shuts off their sink, instead of pumping a little slower, we just send the excess water to a tower. And when demand goes up, instead of pumping faster, we just empty the tower.
Electricity has something similar, they’re called batteries. And every national grid of developed countries has been in need of them since the 1970s. But we just keep doing neat little tricks with averaging to prevent investment in grid batteries. So this is going to continue to be an issue until nations start biting the bullet on this issue. More solar panels is great, but that’s not the major problem at the moment.
I’m wondering, would hydraulic accumulators be a viable option? I’ve heard the scarcity of lithium cited as a reason to hold off on expanding the grid, and I’ve been wondering if maybe there’s a solution in old tech rather than new. But idk if lithium scarcity is actually an issue in this regard or just pointed to as a scapegoat.
We can indeed use things like pump storage and gravity batteries, but we don’t really have to. The next element down on the periodic chat from lithium can be used in place of lithium at half the energy density. Which to save you time, it’s sodium, which can be found in salt, which we have quite a bit of on the planet.
Sodium ion batteries were slightly researched but lithium got the money because it has twice the energy density (amount of energy you can store per kilogram). However, for giant batteries that never have to move, sodium ion batteries are ideal for grid storage.
Oh yeah, it’s massive overkill for the conventional grid. It’s just one of the things I see people say when trying to get people to accept that battery banks can make a renewable-only grid viable here in Australia.
Very insightful. At grid scale the line between them just blurs because of how they’re ultimately used. But there are some differences and ultimately a grid scale pack would be both packed in one. With caps taking the blows to smooth into the chemical storage of the battery behind it or head right back out before a need to store in the chemical behind the cap.
I keep telling people, production isn’t the problem in most national grids. The issue is distribution. Power plants operate on-demand. That means when you flip on your light switch, some power plant somewhere has to spin just a little bit more faster to account for you turning on the light. And when you turn it off, it has to spin just a little bit slower.
There’s no buffer for the in-between. We have the same issue with water pipes. The pumps pump the water out at some fixed rate and everyone uses the water at some variable rate. The difference is that with water we have something that acts as a buffer, we call them water towers. So when someone shuts off their sink, instead of pumping a little slower, we just send the excess water to a tower. And when demand goes up, instead of pumping faster, we just empty the tower.
Electricity has something similar, they’re called batteries. And every national grid of developed countries has been in need of them since the 1970s. But we just keep doing neat little tricks with averaging to prevent investment in grid batteries. So this is going to continue to be an issue until nations start biting the bullet on this issue. More solar panels is great, but that’s not the major problem at the moment.
And don’t get me started with transmission lines.
Sorry, I’m gonna have to hear about the transmission lines
I’m wondering, would hydraulic accumulators be a viable option? I’ve heard the scarcity of lithium cited as a reason to hold off on expanding the grid, and I’ve been wondering if maybe there’s a solution in old tech rather than new. But idk if lithium scarcity is actually an issue in this regard or just pointed to as a scapegoat.
We can indeed use things like pump storage and gravity batteries, but we don’t really have to. The next element down on the periodic chat from lithium can be used in place of lithium at half the energy density. Which to save you time, it’s sodium, which can be found in salt, which we have quite a bit of on the planet.
Sodium ion batteries were slightly researched but lithium got the money because it has twice the energy density (amount of energy you can store per kilogram). However, for giant batteries that never have to move, sodium ion batteries are ideal for grid storage.
Thanks for your insight! It’s super interesting to me, but there’s a lot of noise in the discourse that’s kinda stopped me from looking into it.
Somehow, only China uses HVDC transmission, with much lower losses over 1000km, and the lines can be buried. I got you started.
I would think capacitors would be better than batteries are grid scale? Particularly for the buffering you mention.
Capacitors don’t hold energy for long.
They’re essentially the same thing on the scale of a national grid. Battery banks can turn on the juice in microseconds.
grid buffering does not need that. It’s literally guys looking at demand and phoning around to turn up or down generation.
Fun fact: this was the first in a series of events that caused the Chernobyl explosion.
Oh yeah, it’s massive overkill for the conventional grid. It’s just one of the things I see people say when trying to get people to accept that battery banks can make a renewable-only grid viable here in Australia.
Very insightful. At grid scale the line between them just blurs because of how they’re ultimately used. But there are some differences and ultimately a grid scale pack would be both packed in one. With caps taking the blows to smooth into the chemical storage of the battery behind it or head right back out before a need to store in the chemical behind the cap.