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Plunging Battery Prices Expected To Spur Renewable Energy Adoption
Lucas123 writes: Lithium-ion (Li-on) and flow battery prices are expected to drop by as much as 60% by 2020, making them far more affordable for storing power from distributed renewable energy systems, such as wind and solar, according to a recent report by Australia's Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). The 130-page report (PDF) shows that Li-on batteries will drop from $550 per kilowatt hour (kWh) in 2014 to $200 per kWh by 2020; and flow battery prices will drop from $680 per kWh to $350 per kWh during the same time. Flow batteries and Li-ion batteries work well with intermittent energy sources such as solar panels and wind turbines because of their ability to be idle for long periods without losing a charge. Both battery technologies offer unique advantages in that they can easily be scaled to suit many applications and have high cycle efficiency, the ARENA report noted. Li-ion batteries more easily suit consumer market. Flow batteries, which are less adaptable for consumer use because they're typically too large, scale more easily because all that's needed to grow storage capacity is more electrolyte liquid; the hardware remains the same.
More importantly, will the cost drop? There is so much meddling in the market nowadays that you may pay less for things that are costing more to make, and vice versa.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Check this: http://www.greencarreports.com...
Had to look this one up! From the wikipedia:
A flow battery, or redox flow battery (after reduction–oxidation), is a type of rechargeable battery where rechargeability is provided by two chemical components dissolved in liquids contained within the system and separated by a membrane.[1] Ion exchange (providing flow of electric current) occurs through the membrane while both liquids circulate in their own respective space.
... While it has technical advantages such as potentially separable liquid tanks and near unlimited longevity over most conventional rechargeables, current implementations are comparatively less powerful and require more sophisticated electronics.
On the negative side, flow batteries are rather complicated in comparison with standard batteries as they may require pumps, sensors, control units and secondary containment vessels. The energy densities vary considerably but are, in general, rather low compared to portable batteries, such as the Li-ion.
Lead acid 6 v golf cart battery with over 100 Ah of usable capacity, or 0.6 kWh of storage (ie: 200+ Ah actual capacity, you never drain a lead acid battery flat) : $90. Deep cycle (because it's for powering golf carts) means you actually CAN drain 50% or more of it without damaging the battery at all.
That's $150 per kWh, and you can hop on over to Sam's Club and buy one or more of them tonight.
If you have the space to deal with them, which if you're using them for home you likely do, lead acid battery tech is going to beat out lithium ion for a long time yet (past 2020 apparently!)
I bet you another battery tech will beat both in price and performance, over the next 5 years battery tech is going to take off (it's already started) and what we use today will be primitive in comparison.
Not to mention fusion will finally be feasible which will spin this whole discussion.
Natural gas explosions occur about every other day in the US and over 400 people die per year from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Our existing sources of power and heat aren't exactly risk free.
When I am building robots my battery choices very much are the limiting factor in my designs and the final capabilities of the robot. I can go for big lumbering beasts with piles of lead acid. Or I can break the bank with enough lipo to keep a laptop factory running for a week. Or I can pair my design down until it is simply a toy. Other options are to make it sound like a garden tool and put some kind of gasoline motor in.
But if I had a reasonably priced source of reasonably power dense batteries then my robots would improve proportionally. For this doesn't just increase the power available to my existing designs but it also reduces the overall costs of a robot. For instance the more efficient the motor or cost computer module, generally the higher the cost. But it would be great if I could slap in any old small motherboard, and use run of the mill DC motors instead of ultra cool brushless.
Then whole other motor systems become possible. Linear motors, pneumatic systems, hydraulic systems, etc.
So a revolution in batteries would precipitate a revolution in robots; real robots doing real jobs in the real world.
First of all, I want to know what I want to know, when I want to know it; please don't sit there and tell me what I want to know, OK? Secondly, since what I want in a vehicle doesn't exist yet, so what am I supposed to do?
I've read through about the last 100 of your comments, and I've seen a trend. I'm not here to get in arguments just to get in an argument, so please don't, I'm not interested, OK? Thanks.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
"how do I determine the Ah equivalent, which is what batteries are actually sized in"
That's how lead-acid and other older technologies are actually sized in. Several reasons why. One is they have a slow decline in voltage during discharge, so over the entire cycle the voltage may vary perhaps 35%. Combined with that is the voltage sag. So for these batteries you have a wide span of curves.
In contrast, lipos are *much* flatter. They hold their voltage until they're 90% discharged (or more) and then suddenly fall flat. They also don't have the same sort of sag curves. So you can generally get away with assuming the kWh and Ah are linear, and kWh is far easier to use in practice.
Properly calculated kWh has the voltage drop baked into the calculation, amp hours don't (and what would it even mean?). More simply though, kWh is a measure of energy stored, amp hours isn't without doing that time volts calculation. So kWh is a lot easier to compare different technologies with. We still regularly compare an online for like comparisons like phone batteries, where the voltage curves are similar.
I'm eagerly anticipating affordable electric motorcycles.
I think Brammo and Zeros are rated at ~ 200-500 MPG equivalent?
That's way better mileage than even a fully loaded (everybody standing) bus gets in peak hours.
The problem with the electric motorcycles today is the price tag. The prices have dropped recently (from, say, $19,000 to $14,000, with ~$12,000 for very low end bikes that can't go very far,) but they need to go down further and increase in range.
Well the do have a higher self discharge rate but as far as ability to stand up to abuse and neglect they really are hard to beat.
Time to offend someone
Uh... no.
"Lipo" (lithium-polymer) batteries are subject to thermal runaway (exploding into flame) if abused. Plus they can be more vulnerable for reasons including the typically soft packaging (OTOH, cell phones are not often bursting into flames in people's pockets). Maybe you were thinking of lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) batteries, which have lower voltage and lower specific energy density, but are more robust?
In any case, I thought *we* were discussing all sorts of batteries here, including a variety of lithium chemistries.
Who cares about cheap batteries in 2020. I read that fusion power will supply a veritable firehose of free power for the whole world, and solving the pesky remaining engineering challenges should only take about 15 years. :p
The going rate for residential electricity in the U.S. is about $0.11/kWh. So basically if these batteries charge/discharge once per day (as the case would be for solar), and you want the batteries to only add (say) 20% to the price of the generated electricity in order for it to remain cost-competitive (note: wind is nearly cost-competitive, solar is still about 2x-3x more expensive), then it currently takes $550 per kWh / ($0.11 per kWh * 20% * 365 cycles/yr) = 68.5 years for these batteries to pay for themselves, but by 2020 it will take 27.4 years. Yay progress?
Unless the levelized price for renewable generation drops substantially below that of coal, I don't see how this will "spur renewable energy adoption" except for regions where electricity prices are substantially higher (e.g. Hawaii, $0.30/kWh)
How are batteries of environmentally friendly and sustainable?
Batteries are an enabling technology that can store intermittently available renewable energy for convenient use. Think wind powered cars and solar street lights, both can be made practical through the use of battery storage.
Why are articles citing battery sizes in kWh these days?
Probably because it's a more useful metric, as it tells you the total *energy* in the battery without extra steps. To determine the Ah equivalent, you'd need to multiple by 1k, then divide by the battery's voltage. After all, to convert Ah into Wh, you multiply by the battery's voltage.
quote the battery's size in kWh and you don't need to know the voltage(for the generic purposes of an article). Volts for extremely large battery packs are somewhat optional, after all, it all depends on how you wire them.
I don't read AC A human right
battery tech is going to take off
Why? Batteries have been researched for hundreds of years and is limited to mixing chemicals with known electric potentials. Lipo's are 25 years old now and were the last of major significance.