Does Battery Backup Make Large Scale Wind/Solar Viable?

Cost is always the issue and limiting factor —

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Wind and solar are expensive, inefficient and intermittent.
Batteries won't solve the problem.

Brilliant mathematician David Wojick explains the unforgiving numbers in an important article at CFACT.org:

First comes the cost of utility scale battery facilities. This is much more than just the cost of the batteries. At utility scale these are large, complex facilities. Connecting all of the batteries involved and getting them to work properly together is a big challenge in itself. AC-DC-AC conversions are also a big deal, plus there are buildings, transmission stuff, etc...

Suppose we want to store enough juice to back up the wind farm for just one day, when the wind speed is too low to generate any power. Let’s say we simply need 100 MW for 24 hours, or 2,400 MWh.

At $1.5 million per MWh that is a whopping $3,600 million or $3.6 billion. In short, the batteries cost 24 times more than the “backed up” wind farm costs. In fact in this case the battery cost will be the number of hours times the wind farm cost.

This huge cost certainly makes the wind farm unaffordable, but it gets much worse. Under standard conditions a wind farm produces no power around 25% of the time, due to low wind conditions. Low wind periods of up to a week are fairly common, created by stagnant huge high pressure systems. The power battery system has to be big enough to accommodate these long periods of no wind power.

A week has 168 hours so we need 16,800 MWh of battery storage capacity, at the enormous cost of $25.2 billion, just to make a $150 million wind farm reliable. This would obviously be absurd, which makes the whole idea of battery backup absurd. Even if the cost of batteries were to come way down, say by 90%, the cost would still be wildly prohibitive.

Climate campaigners, and the corporations cashing in on wind and solar subsidies, like to say that the wind and the sun are "free." The reality cannot be further from the truth.

Unfortunately, batteries do not present a viable means to get wind and solar to make sense.

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A deeper look —
https://www.cfact.org/2019/04/26/bat...eid=7e1fe76a24

“Wouldn’t it be nice if... hardly ever is.” — Wacojoe
The math is a harsh mistress.

I can't imagine anyone, with even a reasonable level of knowledge, would think that, with current technology, battery powered back-up is anything but a fools fairy tale.

....and for the record, I don't regard AOC as falling into the "reasonable level of knowledge".

Without viable backup mass scale wind/solar is worse than worthless, yet vast numbers of people and politicians are throwing incredible amounts of money and resources at them.

Not really, Joe. They have standby power plants that can come online on short notice too take up the slack.

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Originally Posted by Mike

Not really, Joe. They have standby power plants that can come online on short notice too take up the slack.

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What Mike said!

They are also learning that the grid can accommodate a far greater portion of the total load coming from renewable sources than they previously thought.

Your politics are tripping up your science Joe :shrug:

The "hot standby" generators can be online in as little as 2 minutes. Keeping them ready is costly and the power they produce costs more than the normal generation. Think of it like NORAD with "hot" aircraft on the line waiting to be called into action.

Of course there have always been backup conventional generators, which multiply the costs to any system which relies upon unreliable wind/solar. Additionally, the “spinning reserve” backup generation to come on in the 2 minute window Mike mentions must be the old style less efficient kind. The newer, more efficient conventional fuel power plants, take too long to spool up. In accounting for the ultimate costs of a grid with integrated wind/solar the cost of the wind and/or solar must also account for the doubling up for reliable power reserves. That is why I said wind/solar is “less than worthless.” My politics or confirmation bias have little to do with the mechanics of the issue...at least I think so. I am open to dissuasion by better facts.

Nobody now even bothers to mention the best solution, nuclear power.

I know its apples to oranges, but my little system is a bunch of 6v batteries with a 25kw backup generator. Batteries suck and are a dangerous environmental mess. I dont know what the state of the art is (tesla?) but it still has to have a terrible waste stream.

Some smart dudes will figure it out. Thumbup

What i should have said was i have experience with small scale solar/battery technology and I can't imagine it being viable on a commercial scale like we all agree. And its nasty and I'm NIMBY about it.

We built 4 "peakers" in NYC several years ago. They were smallish natural gas fired plants to boost the grid during peak demand. Virtually instantaneous.

The instant demand (peaking plants) have some value, but for the most part, if you look at how the grid is managed you will see a combination of "base load" plants, which are running at or near full load, and then there are plants that can be throttled up or down as the load changes. The grid has some "elasticity" built into it.

Commonly the suppliers of this variable load portion are what is called Merchant Generators which are non-utility owned generators, almost universally combined cycle gas turbines. These merchant generators bid on providing power to the grid in different classes--one of which is the "instant on" class. If you look at the cost/unit for that class, you will see why the grid avoids that need as much as possible. They also bid on supplying power over a number of hours and that is more common.

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Originally Posted by CactusCurt

What i should have said was i have experience with small scale solar/battery technology and I can't imagine it being viable on a commercial scale like we all agree. And its nasty and I'm NIMBY about it.

We built 4 "peakers" in NYC several years ago. They were smallish natural gas fired plants to boost the grid during peak demand. Virtually instantaneous.

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I've got two friends that have house size instant on generators in their garage. One had one installed simply for his fish tanks and just took it all the way up while he was at it. The other had one put in right after he bought his Tesla and I wouldn't bet that the Tesla wasn't the only reason though I doubt it. They are nice to have if you can afford it.

Those generators are for when the grid goes down? Yeah thats an expensive fish tank.:confuse: My generator charges the batteries and is controlled by the system voltage. If I was hooked to the grid I could sell power during the day and buy it at night. But if I was hooked to the grid I wouldnt go thru the battery brain damage either.:rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by CactusCurt

Some smart dudes will figure it out.

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I think you are right with that assessment.

I seriously believe battery technology, at some point in the near future, will advance by leaps and bounds. We're certainly due for it. And, I believe major technological advances in battery power will dramatically change our power equation.

Hunter

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Originally Posted by UTAH

I think you are right with that assessment.

I seriously believe battery technology, at some point in the near future, will advance by leaps and bounds. We're certainly due for it. And, I believe major technological advances in battery power will dramatically change our power equation.

Hunter

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I started a thread in the past to try keeping up with this critical element, while youse guys were away. I agree that future revolutionary battery innovations are holding us back and seem on the verge of happening, but... Lot’s of really bright people are working on it 24/7, and I am shocked more has not come of it.

http://www.crackerbarrelphilosophers...Energy-Storage

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Originally Posted by CactusCurt

Those generators are for when the grid goes down? Yeah that's an expensive fish tank.:confuse: My generator charges the batteries and is controlled by the system voltage. If I was hooked to the grid I could sell power during the day and buy it at night. But if I was hooked to the grid I wouldn't go thru the battery brain damage either.:rolleyes:

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Yes for when the grid goes down, they run on natural gas. The fish tanks are saltwater tanks and he has some expensive ones, plus he has a reef tank set up. Power goes out for any length of time he could lose thousands of dollars in fish and habitat.