Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumTesla Just Took Its First Step Toward Obliterating The Power Companies
http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-gigafactory-and-renewables-2014-2Elon Musk just announced details of Tesla's plan to start pumping out lithium ion batteries like M&Ms at its planned "Gigafactory."
Obviously, it's big news for electric vehicles as this should bring down the cost of a very expensive component.
But it has equal and possibly greater significance for renewable energy.
We've explained that power storage is the key to unlocking widespread renewable energy. For renewables to be truly cost competitive with existing power sources, they need to be able to provide a continuous current flow, something difficult to achieve when the wind isn't blowing or sun isn't shining.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-gigafactory-and-renewables-2014-2#ixzz2uWxDJPfq
rafeh1
(385 posts)As compressed air or compressed nitrogen in underground tanks. Ur ac unit could also do side duty as generator. .
madokie
(51,076 posts)rafeh1
(385 posts)kristopher
(29,798 posts)They waste an extreme amount of energy and have almost no range.
Compressed air energy storage for grid applications on the other hand, does work.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)99% of all electrical storage used in the US is such pumped storage systems.
http://water.usgs.gov/edu/hyhowworks.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity
You have to understand when it comes to ways to generate electricity, the quickest to turn on or off is Hydroelectric generators. IF the water is released the turbine turn, if the water is turned off, the turbines stop to spin.
You can NOT do that with Nuclear, oil, natural gas or coal generation. Wind only provides electrical power when the wind is blowing, Solar when the sun is out. Thus Hydroelectric generation is the most efficient way to produce power and is the quickest to turn on or off. Thus the most efficient way to store electrical power for later use.
The basic concept is simple. During those time periods when you have more electrical production from sources other then Hydro, you use that excess electrical power to pump water behind dams. During peak periods the water is releases to run water generators.
As stated above, this is how 99% of electrical power is stored today in US.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)You need a particular alignment of geologic features to do hydro power (or grid-scale pumped storage). Essentially, you need a good sized lake and then a fairly steep descent from that lake. If you're doing pumped storage, you need another lake below to catch and hold the water. The lakes could be made by dams, but you need the steep river, as well as space for the lake around that river.
That set of geologic features doesn't appear all that often. We've already built hydro power plants on pretty much all the suitable places in the country.
Pumped storage opens a few more options, since you don't have to have a naturally-flowing river. But not nearly enough to handle everything.
Batteries have the advantage of "just working" anywhere, regardless of geology. It should be noted grid-scale battery storage also has large disadvantages that weren't covered in the article.
bananas
(27,509 posts)The article in the OP says:
It links to this GTM article which is definitely worth browsing through, especially if you like charts and graphs:
Report: Solar Paired With Storage Is a Real, Near and Present Threat to Utilities
Is the solar-storage combination a deadly one for traditional power companies?
Stephen Lacey
February 26, 2014
In October 2012, as Superstorm Sandy rocked the East Coast, 75 residents gathered in the Midtown Community School in Bayonne, New Jersey.
The elementary school was operating as an emergency shelter, giving people who were stuck in the severely flooded town a place to stay dry. But the school was much more than a shelter -- it was an experiment in hybrid solar photovoltaics that may herald a coming structural change in the power sector.
<snip>
And it's not just emergency backup that makes storage attractive. Now that fast-responding systems like flywheels and lithium-ion batteries can get paid for frequency regulation services in PJM or help reduce onsite demand charges for commercial facilities, storage is emerging as a viable economic alternative.
In one case, Advanced Solar Products was able to pay for a commercial storage system and inverter through frequency regulation payments -- actually making the cost of a hybrid solar-storage system lower than solar alone.
"That, to us, seemed magical, and it told us we could provide this service for a low cost," said Rawlings.
<snip>
kristopher
(29,798 posts)Includes links to the report
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112765172
madokie
(51,076 posts)I just hope I live long enough to see it materialize.
hunter
(38,326 posts)My wife's not going to do that. The no refrigerator / no washing machine / no clothes dryer lifestyle does not appeal to her and she's paying the electric bill.
But I've lived it, as a child and adult.
My great grandma didn't even have indoor plumbing. We lived with her some summers on the family homestead. Providers of your beef. My mom's cousin still owns the ranch. (One of his kids is a techno-geek like myself.)
Carry the water to the wood stove, wait until it's hot, wash! Multiple naked people in the kitchen! An 1800's Scandinavian immigrant thing, I suppose. My great grandma's breasts reached nearly to her naval. I saw 'em.
If my electricity is disconnected tomorrow I can still post here on DU thanks to solar power, but I do confess washing my clothes by hand and hanging them up to dry on the porch is such a nuisance I might be a bit stinky in such circumstances.
I love my parents dearly. Living as indigent Americans in a public park in France was still a grand adventure, no horrors! Even though the bathroom facilities were among the worst imaginable, including random masturbating or vomiting drunks, mostly guys... France got rid of us by giving us ferry tickets to England.
Dropping off the grid is easy. Walk to your main circuit breaker, turn it off. Or don't pay your electric bill.
Only then do things become interesting and worthwhile.
Where we live now we depend on city water and sewage. Everything else, including transportation, is optional. This region's export is food.
There are important things in life: food, water, safe shelter, appropriate medicine, and education. All the other shit is optional and far too often just shit.
cprise
(8,445 posts)And National Geographic didn't come calling? (Sorry... I just couldn't resist )
That is truly amazing. But those circumstances are always a mixture of luck and hardship, and I wouldn't wish them on 7 billion other people (especially not all at the same time).
hunter
(38,326 posts)Perhaps in exchange for free electric service the electric utility would install a 500 milliamp limiter in your breaker box. It could be built into a "smart meter."
Bring your own household load management, (modular battery systems or ??? ), add supplemental solar, or just utilize the micro electric service as-is to charge your smart devices and power your LED lights.
Micro levels of electric power service might even be entirely subsidized by government as a means of encouraging people to "drop out" of high energy, high environmental cost consumer society.
Successful, comfortable, low energy lifestyles might evolve. Would you like air-conditioning? Buy the solar panels to support it, or think up other ways to stay cool. And so on...
Eventually you might end up with lifestyles where residential construction is greatly simplified and much less resource-intensive. Remodeling? Recycle all the copper wiring and coper water pipes inside the walls, replace with a single, very simple 16 gauge copper circuit and PEX water pipe.
Send the recovered copper to "developing" nations where new residential electrical and water service would be installed in a similar fashion.
Etc.