Europe's biggest grid-linked battery which takes in the uneven power from wind turbines and smoothing it out for local homes and businesses

[Social Media]

It looks like a self-storage park: rows of shipping containers in a patch of Merseyside waste ground. But appearances can be deceptive as this is the first step in saving billions of pounds off bills and millions of tonnes of carbon. It's a mega-battery.

Let's take a step back. One of the great advantages of fossil fuels, and one we take largely for granted, is they are so easy to store. Piles of coal, drums of oil, tanks of gas. They just sit there waiting for a deliberate spark.

 

Renewables are different: you can't hold the wind or bottle the sun. As the proportion of green power on our grid grows so does this inconvenient truth

[connda]

Given what a Telsa looks like when it burns, I can just imagine what that 'mega-battery' will burn like when it finally overloads?  ????

Fyi.  Cobalt and lithium are neither renewable or sustainable.  What world governments need to be doing is pouring significant portions of their GDP into Fusion Energy research and development like there is no tomorrow.

[finnsk]

The wind and solar energy, in this moment of the development is not very intelligent.

The green energy needs some kind of big battery systems to store the energy for the days of low green energy production.

The most powefull battery solution at this moment seems to be producing hydrogen and store it in high pressure tanks, there is still some technical problems about how to make big high pressure tanks for hydrogen storage, but hopefull it will be solved.

As far I have looked, there is still no big scale integrated hydrogen producing windmills, even the sea windmills have it all (water and cheap energy) but there is projects on the way, even they still have not passed the desk.

 

I just wonder why it is so slow to roll out a well known technology of producing hydrogen.

[Muhendis]

2 hours ago, connda said:

2 hours ago, connda said:

Fyi.  Cobalt and lithium are neither renewable or sustainable.  What world governments need to be doing is pouring significant portions of their GDP into Fusion Energy research and development like there is no tomorrow.

But we are already using fusion energy every day. Storing it for nighttime use is the problem.

Here is a solution for that which has nothing to do with lithium, cobalt or expensive to produce hydrogen.

Made by an Australian company the formula includes Zinc and Bromine 

https://www.bestmag.co.uk/redflow-completes-installation-its-biggest-zinc-bromine-flow-battery-date/#:~:text=Flow battery firm Redflow has,zinc bromide batteries to date.

Another technology is coming hard on the heals of this which is a solid state version called Gelion. These should be going into production later before the end of 2023.

https://gelion.com/latest-news/

Both of the above are non-combustible, can be fully discharged and are happy over a very wide temperature range.

[Muhendis]

Once you have finished reading about zinc bromine ESS you might like to look at the sodium battery 

https://cen.acs.org/business/inorganic-chemicals/Sodium-comes-battery-world/100/i19

[rickudon]

Disagree with both Connda and Finnsk.

First, safety. Coal, oil and gas can all catch fire as well. When it comes to ICE vehicles, fires are not uncommon. Ex-wife lost a car to an engine fire and a Thai in-law died in a coach fire. Sure accidents to batteries can happen, early days for stats, but i expect lithium batteries (with the possible exception of cheap ones in mobile devices) will be safer than fossil fuelled powered engines.

 

Sustainability? Metals can be recycled, just needs the economic will to drive it. You cannot recycle coal, oil and gas back into their original forms easily if at all.

 

Hydrogen? so overhyped. Generating hydrogen from electrolysis is very energy inefficient, and then burning it again to get electricity, you loose about 80% of the energy. It would have some niche uses, but economically doesn't make sense. To put in context, if that renewable electricity was worth 5 baht per KWH, the electricity from green hydrogen would cost 25 baht a KWH or more. There are also issues over large scale hydrogen storage and transport; hydrogen can leak through most containers due to it's small atomic size, causing a safety issue.

 

Fusion energy - money has been poured into this for 60 years, and so far more energy is produced than what was put in only a couple of times, and this for one time reactions lasting micro seconds. An actual power station, running continuous fusion reactions, is still a dream. Probably will take another 60 years, if ever.

 

Renewable energy, whether from wind solar, tides, hydro or other, are technologies that have been around for some time, just they were uneconomic while fossil fuels were cheap and the main drawback was inconsistent rates of generation; battery power can resolve this. For the next 20 years, renewable power and nuclear fission are the only alternatives to fossil fuels.

 

 

[finnsk]

6 hours ago, rickudon said:

Disagree with both Connda and Finnsk.

 

Hydrogen? so overhyped. Generating hydrogen from electrolysis is very energy inefficient, and then burning it again to get electricity, you loose about 80% of the energy. It would have some niche uses, but economically doesn't make sense. To put in context, if that renewable electricity was worth 5 baht per KWH, the electricity from green hydrogen would cost 25 baht a KWH or more. There are also issues over large scale hydrogen storage and transport; hydrogen can leak through most containers due to it's small atomic size, causing a safety issue.

 

Disagree in your hydrogen price calculation

We can always discuss how to calculate green energi prices, but as an example, there is  already now so much windmill capasity in the North sea (sea north of Uk and beside Norway), that the mills is stopped on some windy days. And the mill capacity is going to be more expanded the next many years. That means there is close to free energy on windy days, the energy can not be sold to to normal consuming because of overcapacit . In this light it gives good meaning to make hydrogen electrolyse when there is close to cost free energy.

Edited February 12, 2023 by finnsk

[OneMoreFarang]

It's sad that lots of people ignore the wonderful invention of nuclear power.