Comment on Solar power surpasses coal in EU for first time
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
The problem with solar in much of Europe is that it’s basically summer power only. You can’t solve that with batteries, unfortunately.
I like using less coal and gas in summer, but solar won’t fix things in December. Wind will.
There are some interesting early pilot projects where long term energy storage is being tested.
Current EV batteries are not even close to being suitable for grid energy storage, so we need something completely different for that. It’s probably going to take a long time before anything viable gets mass produced, which means that at the moment we’re stuck with internment renewables and fossil fuels.
Current EV batteries are not even close to being suitable for grid energy storage
What do you mean?
www.abc.net.au/news/science/…/104498552
It can definitely store more than enough to power a household over night, for some people potentially a week, If I use 10kwh a day and have an 80kwh+ size EV battery it will definitely provide me with enough cheap power for a week and complimented every time the sun comes out
I still don’t understand why there aren’t great big fat energy pipes connecting Europe to Algeria and getting in a whole ton of that year round cheap sun energy
EV batteries are not ideal for grid energy storage due to:
Unnecessary features: High energy density is essential for vehicles but not for stationary grid storage. That feature doesn’t come for free, so why pay for it if you don’t need it. An industrial scale grid energy facility could be located outside the city where land is cheap. Who cares if the facility takes as much space as a paper mill or a mine site.
Cost efficiency: EV batteries are expensive per unit of capacity. Grid storage requires massive amounts of cheaper alternatives. Various industries need a lot of energy, so the storage demand is also massive. This means that a battery facility of functional size that uses normal NMC batteries is going to cost a fortune. Cheaper alternatives such LFP would make more sense.
Material scarcity: The rare materials used in EV batteries (like lithium) would be challenging to scale up for grid-level storage needs. Households are only a small slice of the pie, while factories and other types of industries take the rest, so we really need to use materials that are dirt cheap and easily available.
Current NMC and NCA batteries used in cars should be good enough for the energy needs of a single house, but the rest of society needs an industrial scale solution. There are several technologies that look promising, but they aren’t quite production ready just yet. I’m really looking forward to seeing how redox flow batteries develop in the future. There are also some interesting battery chemistries such as sodium-ion, oxygen, magnesium-ion, and lithium-sulfur.
Most EVs this year will use LFP batteries because they are much cheaper. They also provide grid with a free resource, and EU likely has the critical mass to let consumers monetize service to grid. A big advantage of LFP is longer life, and so more consumer profit opportunity, and less investment required by grid.
Small counterpoint to yours; soon there will be only EVs it seems. So availability / features / suboptimal fit for purpose is all moot when you have the car that can act as a battery…
In Belgium a lot of cars are basically part of compensation from employers ; furthering the use of those for overnight storage would make plenty of sense and be an easy way to kickstart the initiative a low cost for the users and would put a positive twist on those compny cars.
So a problem with a solution then?
I guess batteries are for the evening/night/morning, not for the winter.
Exactly. I’m just surprised that the article suggest solar+battery, which is a great solution for owners of solar farms, but not so useful for everyone else.
Maybe its for those setting up a personal solar “farm” for making some money, like you dont need to sell your electricity for scrap in the daytime because with batteries you can sell it when it’s more expensive. Like a capitalist sales speech :-)
But IDK.
Was the goal to ever only use one source of renewables?
TurtleSoup@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
Wind or Nuclear.
I get that nuclear is a Boogeyman for some but it really is one of the better options for taking a step in the right direction and getting us closer to less oil dependency.