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Tesla Switches on Giant Battery To Shore Up Australia's Grid (reuters.com)
Tesla switched on the world's biggest lithium ion battery on Friday in time to feed Australia's shaky power grid for the first day of summer, meeting a promise by Elon Musk to build it in 100 days or give it free. From a report: "South Australia is now leading the world in dispatchable renewable energy," state Premier Jay Weatherill said at the official launch at the Hornsdale wind farm, owned by private French firm Neoen. Tesla won a bid in July to build the 129-megawatt hour battery for South Australia, which expanded in wind power far quicker than the rest of the country, but has suffered a string of blackouts over the past 18 months. In a politically charged debate, opponents of the state's renewables push have argued that the battery is a "Hollywood solution" in a country that still relies on fossil fuels, mainly coal, for two-thirds of its electricity.
South Australia (and Australia generally) is a special case for renewable energy since it is a small continent, and sparsely inhabited.
This is a fix for a remote corner in Australia, the edge of the 5th largest population center (Adelaide*) separated from it by 100 miles and isolated by hundreds of miles of emptiness from anywhere else. There is little redundant/backup infrastructure, or all that many people.
More generally battery facilities shouldn't be needed in larger, more populous continents (North America, Eurasia).
The solution to issues of variable power production is to connect the entire continent together with high voltage DC power lines (a nearly century old technology) which can ship power from one coast of North America to the other with losses of under 5%. You build enough excess solar and wind capacity that even under the worst conditions you still have enough for the entire continent (Canada and Mexico should be part of this grid also).
This also allows using the sun out west to power the evening peak back east, and so forth, leveling out production/consumption mismatches.
Pumped storage can service the entire grid since power can be transported long distances. The U.S. currently has enough pumped storage on-line to provide 2.2% of US grid capacity (and about twice this much more has been licensed), so it can be sited where ever geography makes it most convenient.
We need some national-level vision to help bring this about (good luck with that at present), but mostly this can be done by private investment.
*The greater metropolitan area of Adelaide has a population of 1,317,000 which is 77% of the entire population of South Australia (which is 50% larger than Texas). Things get really sparse really fast out past Adelaide's metro area.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
But it is equally a bad idea during 1910 to dump your investments in buggy whips and manure disposals because 2/3 of the road transportation is populated by horses. And we need these industries to stay strong while the transition takes place.
While Renewable energy and battery storage gets perfected we still need to upgrade and manage the existing dirty power, to make sure services don't get cut off.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
What people don't realize is that the electric grid is on demand; there has never before been a battery system. The power requirements of society must be monitored continuously, and generators must not only be put online as demand increases, but must also be taken offline as demand decreases.
This has been one of the problems with the growth of solar panels in Hawaii. Those panels would dump more electricity into the grid than was needed, causing outages as safety mechanisms kicked in. Until batteries have become workable, the only thing to do with that extra power has been to squander it.
Now, those batteries can be charged at off-peek hours by even those fossil fuel plants, and the batteries can then be used to supplement/smooth power requirements during peak hours. This will put fossil fuel plants under less stress, in terms of mechanics and personnel. It will make fossil fuel usage more efficient.
Star Trek's PADD device was a hollywood solution too. Until it wasn't.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
He might end up a pauper dying alone in a hotel room like his inspiration, Nicholi. Or he might actually deliver enough of what he promised to be ranked along with Whitney, Colt, Edison, Westinghouse, Ford as the leading light of American Industry....
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
This is so funny. Here comes Musk--again--makes a big boast "Battery in 100 days or it is free!" Beats his own goal, turns on the battery, and some people here just can't stand it. Musk wins. You lose. Get over yourselves.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
No, capitalism requires that you chase capital without mercy. Socialism implies that you generate what people need.
Read this article from 1988; specifically "It is this obsession with capital accumulation that distinguishes capitalism from the simple system for satisfying human needs it is portrayed as in mainstream economic theory. And a system driven by capital accumulation is one that never stands still, one that is forever changing, adopting new and discarding old methods of production and distribution, opening up new territories, subjecting to its purposes societies too weak to protect themselves. Caught up in this process of restless innovation and expansion, the system rides roughshod over even its own beneficiaries if they get in its way or fall by the roadside. As far as the natural environment is concerned, capitalism perceives it not as something to be cherished and enjoyed but as a means to the paramount ends of profit-making and still more capital accumulation."
Indeed. Look at the stats on the battery: 100MW, yet only 129MWh. This isn't storing power for long periods of time; it's providing a power-plant level of power until power plant outputs can be ramped up elsewhere. Hence it physically cannot be used as a "storage for when the wind doesn't blow" solution (unless the wind is only stopped for an hour or so). Tesla does make longer-term storage solutions too (it's done that for solar in a number of places), but that's not what this battery is.
Pinkypants -- my favorite!
No, that is a command economy, designed for wartime efficiency in the face of scarcity despite increased needs for defence. Every country uses it for industrial warfare now. Socialism in the sense of the article is about removing the impetus for capital accumulation beyond what is used to meet the needs of people. Gluttony is the core of raw capitalism. This is why modern countries use social democracy with markets to correct that excess.
Sure he did - he made a bunch of Slashdotters (and "experts") look silly ;)
(It cost $50M. And judging from Semi battery prices, if they were to do it again late next year, it'd be a small fraction of that much)
Link
Reminder: it was not only done 99 days from the bet, but only 55 days from the contract signing ;)
Pinkypants -- my favorite!
I was under the impression that Australia already had substantial industrial-scale power grid energy storage using vanadium redox flow batteries.
Seems to me that's a better match to the problem - unless Tesla has made drastic improvements in cost and cycle-life as a fallout of their work to improve them for cars and house-scale renewable storage.
Lithium Ion batteries are, IMHO, more about portability of energy storage than price-efficiency.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Personally I only ever hire armchair engineers. Real engineers are useless for a comedy show.