A huge battery has replaced Hawaii’s last coal plant 3

[cmoreride]

Plus Power’s Kapolei battery is officially online. The pioneering project is a leading example of how to shift crucial grid functions from fossil-fueled plants to clean energy.

https://www.canarymedia.com/article...-battery-has-replaced-hawaiis-last-coal-plant

 

[LionelHutz]

So I made a seat of the pants guess and missed it by one % point?

Last I checked >29% RE is much further than 1% point away from 10-15%? Yet more proof you can't do math?

 

[dik]

With climate change, the numbers are likely in a state of flux, I suspect.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[TugboatEng]

Hutz, the combined cycle plants require distillate or gaseous fuels. They are more efficient than conventional but cost more to operate. In regions like California where all plants burn nat gas, some of the peaking plants have replaced the base load plants. Moss Landing is my local example.

Dik, you didn't say anything.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

So, yes it appears you're still just being purposely argumentative.

From a 3rd party neutral perspective:
Reading both your and TugBoat's comments, it seems like you're the one being more argumentative.

Honestly, you've both made really good points along the way. You pointing out that 'stabilizing' the grid with the battery power is helpful. Then Tug's pointing out that there is good reason to be skeptical of ANY reporting on Green energy given the history of lies overly optimistic projections.

It appears to me like you're taking his posts as personal insults against you. I don't read them that way at all. I think his follow up posts make that pretty clear.... Especially the ones where he included a chart that he neglected to include in his previous post or where he pointed out that he was not considering biomass to be renewable. I suppose, he could be baiting you (or us) into flaming him so that he can appear to be the reasonable one. But, if you think he might be doing that, then I suggest you shouldn't take the bait so eagerly.

 

[LionelHutz]

I consider a lot of his posting is a personal insult towards the whole forum, especially considering he posted at one time that he posts purposely contrary responses.

Touting data from 2 years ago is stupid. I found the 29% in 2022 with more being added in 2023 from the FIRST link in my search, with more of the same appearing in the following links.

 

[TugboatEng]

I remember that post. I was combatting the science by consensus going on during COVID. What we were being told with regards to transmission and vaccine efficacy was wildly contrary to our personal experiences, all of ours. Now, two years later, it seems everything I said ended up being true.

Back to the topic, again, I don't consider biomass to be renewable. It produces way more CO2 per unit energy than fossil fuels. I don't really understand the justification there unless it is being used for waste disposal.

With that said, your chart shows lower renewables than the one I linked. Yours is slightly over 10% while the one I linked was 16%.

Regardless of our data sources, the grid demand doesn't fluctuate from 100% to less than 15% under any conditions. Sure, renewables may contribute more than 15% depending on conditions and time of day but again, it's likely nowhere near the base load. In these cases any benefit from a battery system will be directly the result of creative accounting.

 

[LionelHutz]

With that said, your chart shows lower renewables than the one I linked. Yours is slightly over 10% while the one I linked was 16%.

I didn't post a chart or a link to a percentage production chart, so what exactly are you spewing on about here?

Regardless of our data sources, the grid demand doesn't fluctuate from 100% to less than 15% under any conditions. Sure, renewables may contribute more than 15% depending on conditions and time of day but again, it's likely nowhere near the base load. In these cases any benefit from a battery system will be directly the result of creative accounting.

Just more contrary writing from someone who doesn't understand how utility generation (supply) vs demand works, or simply won't admit it so they can be contrary.

There is a cost to meeting peak demand, regardless of how that energy gets produced. Saying that unless they can time shift only solar energy that this battery bank is a useless money waste is complete stupidity.

 

[TugboatEng]

I can understand a case for batteries in a rural are with abundant RE that might not have the line capacity to ship its peak generated power.

Oahu is very small, I don't think the above is a case for them.

With todays modern combined cycle plants (most of Hawaii's power generation is from distillate fuels and Jet A which would be uneconomical to run in a conventional plant) the turndown ratios and responsiveness are very good. So much so that peaking plants are hardly necessary anymore. In this situation there really should never be any excess power on the grid for a battery to be of benefit.

Maybe we can do some napkin calculations for this thing. Start with some assumptions: $219 million to build. 565MWh capacity, $400/MWh electricity price, and one full cycle per day.

With these assumptions the battery would need to complete 969 full discharge cycles to pay for itself assuming it costs nothing to charge.

But, we can only discharge to 20% and charge to 80% for maximum battery life. So that increases us to 1615 cycles.

That's assuming the charging power is free. I know we have some disagreement about the percentage of power that is renewable so I'll be generous and say that 25% of the electricity is renewable (FREE). Even with 25% of power free, the pay off date gets pushed out to 6460 days.

The battery is to be operated by Tesla so maybe they'll want 10% of revenue. We're up to 7178 discharge cycles to pay off.

20 years, the projected project life is 7300 days. That means it will have 122 days of profit or $3.6 million in return on $219 million investment. That's not very good.

This margin will certainly become negative when we start looking at operational costs, Capacity loss, and partial charging due to unfavorable weather.

 

[LionelHutz]

First - Can this responsiveness you're going on about quickly ramp up above 100% output? What are the pros and cons of using the battery vs firing up another generating plant?

Second - I could assume whatever I want in an attempt to skew numbers towards my argument. However, it's all just hot air without detailed knowledge of the various generation costs scenarios.

Third - You're completely ignoring the fact that BESS's are one of the requirements to support bringing SIGNIFICANTLY MORE renewable energy online in the next few years. If you want more RE then you need some kind of bi-directional energy storage system to stabilize it.

Your stance is basically saying that everyone involved in installing solar + BESS systems all over North America are all stupid and doing it wrong since North America generally has enough non-RE generation to support the grid.

 

[TugboatEng]

Can anything ramp up above 100% output?

I used the $0.40 per KWh as an average cost as it's slightly below what the rate payers pay. Is the power company rolling in profit because their production rates are significantly lower than what they're charging?

Do you have detailed knowledge of generation scenarios? There isn't much transparency around these projects. This is especially frustrating considering the amount of taxpayer subsidies behind them.

The BESS has a finite life expectancy. By the time the renewables are online the BESS will be worn out. It would be better to invest in the energy source first, then figure out storage. Imagine where they would be if $219 million worth of solar were installed.

Stupid isn't the right word. These projects are done for grant collection. I'd say the shareholders are quite brilliant. Lobby government to get your system mandated and watch the money roll in.

 

[LionelHutz]

Can anything ramp up above 100% output?

No it can't, hence why your argument that a combined cycle plant can just ramp up and down to meet whatever the peak demand happens to be is overly simple.

Do you have detailed knowledge of generation scenarios?

No, that's why I'm not going to crap out numbers which could easily be meaningless. I could just make up numbers to "prove" my point, but that would be pointless.

There isn't much transparency around these projects.

Public utilities generally have a decent amount of information available if you look in the right place.

The BESS has a finite life expectancy.

20 years. There are plans to double the amount of solar within 2-5 years and it's going to keep going up. Your solution is to just put a bunch of solar in and then not make best use of it for years until someone figures out how to do that? Hint - the smart people have already figured this out, it's using BESS + solar. Once again, if you want solar (or wind) and want to best use it then including BESS is the answer.


Removing 10% of their supply with the coal plant put Oʻahu at risk of having a supply deficit, so this BESS being capable of shifting excess generation to peak usage times helped reducing the risk. It wasn't hard to gather this from the article, I had no problem figuring it out. More research and study would confirm it or not - the data is available if you find it necessary to confirm yourself. Can you not comprehend this, or have you just decided to be contrary and ignore it so you can argue against it? You come into most threads and post arguments against whatever has been posted no matter what it is, so I'm expecting nothing less here.

 

[TugboatEng]

This stuff isn't easy to find amongst all of the paid for advertising masquerading as news.

https://blog.yesenergy.com/yeblog/a...mance-of-caisos-two-largest-batteries-in-2021

Here are some real numbers. $560 million to build and $22.6 million in revenue for a year. That's a 25 year payoff on a battery with a 20 year life expectancy. That's right in line with my previous napkin calculations.

You keep missing my point about combined cycle power plants. They have a high turndown ratio. They don't have to operate at 100%. They'll do just fine running around 50% as well. Build lots of solar for the base load and let the combined cycle handle the peaking. This will have a more immediate reduction in GHG.

Also, if it takes 20 years for the solar to catch up with the battery, after 20 years the early solar panels will already be at end of life. By the time generation and storage are finally matched for best performance both will need to be replaced.

 

[TugboatEng]

You told me that public utilities have a lot of information available, but the Oahu plant is new and doesn't have any history yet. I used the Moss Landing grid scale battery as an example as it is one of the longest running grid scale batteries.

Speaking of Oahu, the primary advertised benefit of grid scale batteries is that they allow power plants to run at higher capacity when fuel is cheaper due to the rapid fluctuations in natural gas pricing. I don't think Oahu gets any of their power from natural gas. Their power comes from liquid fuels that are purchased and stored ahead of time and not subject to spot pricing.

Solar power can't even power the island during the day. At this time the capacity it is only useful for offsetting fossil fuels. I understand that you believe more solar will come online in the future, but why build a system with a finite life expectancy anticipating the future? Again, by the time there is sufficient renewable energy available to benefit from storage the original battery may already require replacement.

All you have left is to claim 22.6 million isn't searchable because the article said 22,600,000? That is your gotcha?

 

[enginesrus]

dik (Structural)
15 Jan 24 19:55
With climate change, the numbers are likely in a state of flux, I suspect.

-------------------------------------------------
You mean climate engineering correct?

 

[SwinnyGG]

You mean climate engineering correct?

No. No one means that, because it isn't a thing.

 

[KaBone]

I don’t think a business case can be made to save humanity because it involves reversing entropy which will always be more expensive.