European Energy Crisis 4

[SSCon]

The energy crisis looks like it's going to develop into a full-blown catastrophe, yet there is very little media attention. For those not aware, natural gas & electricity prices are at record levels and we're only one week into the "heating season".

UK gas prices reached £4/Therm, equivalent to $54/MMBtu (no I didn't misconvert that, but I'll understand if you feel the need to double check).

Electricity prices are at astonishing levels right across Europe.

Ireland seems likely to be the first to fail as they're at the end of the gas supply chain and currently have the highest electricity prices.

This winter Europe will be at the mercy of the weather, mild & windy and it may be ok. But if it's cold, the level of disaster coming is hard to conceive.

 

[FacEngrPE]

I did not intend to seem overly pessimistic. There are plenty of examples where pumped storage is working well, and may grid scale projects operating and in the pipeline.
List of pumped-storage hydroelectric power stations From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
If we are to meet the political goal of all renewables by 2050, there is a huge amount of work to be done in storage.

 

[SSCon]

Pumped storage is useful for daily load balancing. There's no prospect of any storage technology being able to balance the weeks long lulls from unreliables.

Even if stupendous amounts of money was spent for a weeks storage they will still need to be backed up with conventional generation for the occasions where the lulls last longer than a week.

 

[dik]

@SSCon... shows you how difficult and serious the problem really is... and it's going to get a lot more interesting, if my crystal ball is any indication.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[RedSnake]

Did yo get your crystal ball?
Mine has been lost in the mail for ages.

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.“
Albert Einstein

 

[dik]

Amazon?

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[JohnRBaker]

How has the prospect of battery storage changed any of these estimates? The report cited by FacEngrPE was 10 years old. A lot has happened in 10 years with respect to both battery technology and entrepreneurs investing in batteries, both in their production and their availability as part the power grid infrastructure.

Here is California, the organization that manages the grid, California ISO (Independent System Operator) has a website where you can track the status of the state's power grid including the contribution of various power sources as well as the current usage. I occasionally visit their site if for no other reason than to see how much are renewables contributing to the grid versus more traditional and conventional power generating technologies. Recently I noticed that they're starting to include 'Batteries' as one of the sources, or at least including it as part of the available statistics. Granted, the contribution is minuscule, at the moment, but I suspect that that will change in time. Of course, batteries are not a true 'source' of power, but since the site is showing the current contribution to the current status of the grid, it can be a source at any one moment. Below is a graph of what yesterdays charge/discharge curve looked like:

You can clearly see that the batteries are charging during the day and discharging in the evening. From the profile (and this is consistent with other days that I've looked at), it would seem that these batteries are being used to balance a solar farm since the numbers match almost exactly the periods of sunshine and darkness. Now, based on checking the values, which you can do from the screen using your cursor, it appears that the maximum discharge rate is just under 1,000 MW's, not a lot compared to other 'sources', but certainly something that can help. I suspect that over time, these numbers will go up as I think the state operators are adding batteries as part of their improvement project.

For anyone interested, here's the link the California ISO site:

https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/index.html

To see the status of different 'sources', select the 'Supply' option from the list in the middle of the page.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-'Product Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[bones206]

There’s a company down the road from me developing some interesting technology that could be used for energy storage. Not my area of expertise but I’m curious to hear what people think:

https://www.peregrineturbine.com/

 

[RedSnake]

There was reportage about Estonia power production on Swedish Public TV today.
It is the dirtiest in Europe, since they are burn oil shale.
One reason for this is that they do not want to be dependent on Russian power production ( my comment which is understandable) but they are looking at burning other renewable energi sources instead, one problem they have is that most of the workers in the oil shale quarries are ex Russians (Russian speaking minority), so they are afraid that Russia will start meddling in things if they change the production to fast.
And of course they have the same problem/argument that there will be a lot unemployed people if they shut this down.

The next reportage was about Chalmers University research about making natrium batteries, they have made great progress and now they are looking at how to making a viable long term product.

And Northvolt AB is building a factory in Skellefteå for the production of lithium-ion batteries for electric cars and for energy storage it will be the largest in Europe.

One assembly site will be in Polen, but I wonder how that will go if Polen don't start following the EU rulings or tries to make a Pexit.



“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.“
Albert Einstein

 

[SSCon]

The cost of building a battery to store a couple of days energy from a nuclear power plant is more than the cost of a nuclear power plant!

 

[RedSnake]

Why would anyone want to store nuclear energi from a powerplant in a batteri I do not get it?

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.“
Albert Einstein

 

[SSCon]

If you're using batteries to even out an intermittent energy supply it'd actually be cheaper to build a reliable nuclear powered energy supply and not have to worry about storage at all.

The point of the comparison is to show the absurd cost of grid scale battery storage and that you'd have to be innumerate to suggest it could play any role in mittigating the current energy crisis.

 

[RedSnake]

I am not suggesting anything.
But in our case it is not possible because our government have decision that we can't build any new nuclear plants only replace the ones we have.
And we still haven't found somewhere to store our waste.

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.“
Albert Einstein

 

[SSCon]

Not directed at you, just a general frustration with people who propogate the fallacy that storage can bring forth a utopian solar/ wind powered grid.

 

[JohnRBaker]

I just read a press release (link below) from the California ISO where they've recently increased the grid's battery capacity to 1,500 MW with plans to add an additional 1,500 MW by the end of the year.

Link to the press release:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...Lrbib7zAhWXCjQIHReJD4MQFnoECBIQAQ&url=http://

http://www.caiso.com/Documents/Cali...the-Grid.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0ZXmvh60DKxxzsvmeZNoE6

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-'Product Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[TugboatEng]

Does that include the recent loss of 300MW?

https://www.montereycountyweekly.co...cle_3c30ab46-1657-11ec-b44b-5ffbeeab437d.html

 

[SSCon]

Without reading it, I'm confident it doesn't contain an energy unit.

Now why would a press release about energy storage not contain any energy units?

 

[JohnRBaker]

Well, the graphs still shows that approximately 1,000 MW of capacity is still online, so I guess if you subtract the 300 MW from the reported 1,500 MW...

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-'Product Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[waross]

John, 1500 MW is a rate not a capacity. The sparkies will be more interested in figures for Mega-Watt-Hours than in a Mega-Watt discharge rate for an unknown time period.

--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!

 

[waross]

Storage of nuclear energy for a number of days?
Sounds like a misleading article by an anti-nuke proponent.
More reasonable would be a much smaller battery bank to provide peaking power.
Rather than 100% of plant output for several days, 15% or 25% of plant output for several hours.
Days to hours = 1day/24hours = 4.167%
25%/100% = 25%
4.166% x 25% = 1.04%
A reasonable cost may be 1% of the reported cost.
--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!

 

[1503-44]

Why argue about batteries. It's just one part in the very large puzzle of how the problem as a whole is being addressed. 100% nuke is also not the answer.

The Polish EU problem has, as of this moment, not been the result of burning coal. Poland's ideology no longer appears to accept the conditions they agreed to abide by, as all member states did, when they joined.