
Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables - fmihaila
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/07/elon-musks-big-battery-brings-reality-crashing-into-a-post-truth-world
======
tootie
This article, like Turnbull, is incorrectly equating cost with price.
Emissions are a cost. Price + emissions = cost. Renewables have been beating
coal on cost for quite a while, only now they can start to win on price.

~~~
shoo
that's true.

but to dig a bit deeper, who pays each cost and who benefits from the value?

    
    
      who directly benefits from the value of energy:
      - australian energy consumers
      - australian energy producers
    
      who pays the costs for energy prices:
      - australian energy consumers
    
      who pays the costs for australian emissions *:
      - people living in australia -- 0.3% of emissions
      - people living in world excluding australia -- 99.7% of emissions
    
    

* assuming each person currently alive in world has equal interest in global climate. this is pretty crude as people who arent born yet get to carry the cost too.

Clearly we cant account for these shared global costs sensibly unless enough
countries reach some kind of global agreement. The current australian federal
government is taking a regrettable approach of self-interest and is waiting
for the larger/more powerful countries to lead the way. Australia has plenty
of coal to sell in the mean time.

~~~
jdietrich
Failure to act on climate change has a game-theoretic cost. Taking unilateral
action massively improves your negotiating position and reduces the cost for
other countries to reduce their emissions via economies of scale. One country
taking decisive action could trigger a chain reaction of political pressure.

Australia has a horrendous wildfire problem. The frequency and severity of
wildfires has drastically increased over recent years. A small increase in
global temperatures could render vast areas of the country effectively
uninhabitable due to the risk of fire.

I think that most Australians are willing to act; that will is being subverted
by a powerful coal lobby. They see the hellish scenes every summer. They see
the immense financial, environmental and human cost. They see the weight of
scientific evidence.

~~~
tominous
Paradoxically, more frequent fires can often mean less severe fires. That's
the rationale behind controlled burns and traditional aboriginal land
management practices.

And because this is Hacker News, have a play with the simulation hosted at
Fourmilab:
[http://www.fourmilab.ch/cellab/manual/rules.html#Forest](http://www.fourmilab.ch/cellab/manual/rules.html#Forest)

~~~
roel_v
Having written (as in, programmed, based on process knowledge from fire
departments) a model for forest fires in Australia myself over the last few
months, I feel that I can say that while a fine demo application of CA based
modeling, this model is not an accurate description of forest fir behaviour
(well unless it's just to illustrate how planned burns interact with their
crude approximation of fuel load). E.g. it doesn't even consider slope and
wind direction, or vegetation type.

------
aphextron
Can anyone comment more generally on using lithium ion batteries for grid
scale storage? It seems nonsensical to me.

Lithium makes sense for cars where power density is essential. But with grid
scale storage, there are so many drawbacks, including

1.) High fixed cost vs. other batteries

2.) Degradation from dendrite growth

3.) Need for constant cooling

4.) Possibility of catastrophic failure in case of short circuiting

In contrast something like Zinc-Bromine flow batteries have unlimited cycling
with zero loss of energy storage, and are inherently composed of fire
retardant materials, making them impossible to catch fire or explode [0]. The
trade off is in energy density, but that shouldn't be an issue for fixed grid-
scale deployments.

This story feels like forcing a solution with the power of good marketing, not
solid engineering.

[0] [http://redflow.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Garth-Corey-
as...](http://redflow.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Garth-Corey-
assessment__zinc_bromine_battery.pdf)

~~~
vamur
129MWh is a laughable amount of storage when you need at minimum 10000MWh per
day for 1mln people. So you would need at least $12.5bln to build enough
plants for just one day per 1mln people. And that's not counting maintenance.
For that price 2-3 nuclear plants can be built which can last 30-50 years
unlike the 10-20 years of lithium storage.

Instead of hideously expensive (and potentially explosive) lithium storage,
solution should be synthesizing and storing some form of gas. This gas can
then be produced and stored in underground locations during summer, and then
spent during winter.

~~~
illektr1k
I, for one, can't wait for SI Units and their prefixes (Kilo / Mega / Giga /
etc) to be adopted globally.

129MWh / 10GWh / 1M people / 12.5G people

~~~
Redoubts
I’d be satisfied with joules instead of watt hours.

------
cameldrv
The article, of course, is guilty of exactly what it accuses its opponents of
-- truthiness. They say that this is affordable, and then don't even say how
much it costs! He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense [1]

[1] [http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/](http://www-
formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/)

~~~
nl
This is true, but I'd note this quite from the article:

 _Nyhan showed a clear tendency for people with high numeracy skills to
misread graphs about gun control or climate change, even when they’d just
correctly read the same graph about soap._

To address you specific point though - the price is less than
A$150M/$US115M[1].

By comparison, the SA government is also building a new 250MW gas fired power
station which costs A$360M[2].

It's difficult to compare the two because they are such different things of
course. But I'd note that at periods of high wind generation the power price
in SA does drop to zero, but the peak price is very high. It seems likely the
price of energy from the wind farm plus battery will be extremely competitive
with gas, and the investment price seems roughly proportional for the amount
of energy made available.

[1] [http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/south-
aus...](http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/south-australian-
government-refuses-to-say-how-much-worlds-biggest-lithium-ion-battery-will-
cost/news-story/)

[2] [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-13/sa-gas-fire-power-
stat...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-13/sa-gas-fire-power-station-
gains-international-interest/8442578)

~~~
petra
How much is the price for kwh stored/dispatched , over the long term ? that's
the missing data here.

And btw: i don't know the economics of this project, but in general, if this
was cost effective, Musk would have tons of customers(including power
companies), to supply power during peak hours and save them a lot of money.

~~~
cinquemb
> _Musk would have tons of customers(including power companies), to supply
> power during peak hours and save them a lot of money._

Assuming such customers don't already have existing contractual obligations
with existing providers nor assets whose valuation depends on no significant
changes to current operations.

~~~
petra
It isn't the case. There are many businesses(both utilities and others) who
could use a peak shaving solution, especially one as scaleable as batteries.

EDIT: what's unique about the australian installation(in 100 days), is that it
is politically driven, or risk management driven(to reduce the risk of
outages). see[2].

And so, using a healthy dose of skepticism, All i'm saying: If there's a real
economical solution for the big problem of energy storage, real deployments
are the test, not politically/risk driven deployments, or
psychological/marketing[1] driven deployments(like we see with the power
wall).

And this is a repeating pattern with musk(a marketing genius, definetly, and
very smart overall), succeeding quite well on the higher end of the market,
but when it comes to the more commodity end, his companies are less stellar:
see First Solar, or the fact the Renault-Nissan sells more electric cars than
Tesla.

[1][https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/how-to-sell-
ene...](https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/how-to-sell-energy-
storage-when-the-economics-dont-work)

[2][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14715679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14715679)

~~~
cinquemb
How do you know? Do you have access to the contracts that, for example, a
large provider like PG & E signs with it's partners for their current "peak
shaving solution"? Do you have detailed access to their balance sheets and
appraiser information?

From their latest 10k[0], Gas related equipment represents 26% of the value of
their assets. They would, have to write some non trivial amount off because
they would no longer have any use of it by switching to use batteries like
these. What would their majority shareholders think in response to that? What
if they are also invested in the supply chain of such? I assume those would be
non-zero losses.

[0]
[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/75488/00010049801700...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/75488/000100498017000012/form10q.htm)

Edit:

If you are implying that economics of a thing can be decoupled from politics,
then I think that is a faulty belief. You won't get "real deployments" unless
current providers are out competed on whatever front (economics/politics) or
routed around and made obsolete in some fashion, because they stand to lose
economically based on their current investment. Whether you agree with how
Elon (or others) is going about it, is irrelevant in so much as you aren't in
direct opposition or exposed to the risk of such changes.

I'm not long TSLA nor have no future plans to be so.

~~~
petra
>> economics of a thing can be decoupled from politics,

Did i imply that ? i just said that the australian project has little
relevance to companies who do seek energy storage, because their reasons,
motivations, are different, and this greatly affects cost sensitivity.

But you know what? i don't understand politics.

Maybe Australian Politicians didn't expose the low, low cost of stored kwh
using this system, because they are humble.

~~~
cinquemb
> _i just said that the australian project has little relevance to companies
> who do seek energy storage, because their reasons, motivations, are
> different, and this greatly affects cost sensitivity._

>> _All i 'm saying: If there's a real economical solution for the big problem
of energy storage, real deployments are the test, not politically/risk driven
deployments, or psychological/marketing[1] driven deployments(like we see with
the power wall)_

Because other energy companies aren't worried about political risks? If that
was the case, why would companies lobby government officials/politicians at
all anywhere in the world? I'd think all energy companies have similar
considerations, but how they choose to weight them may be different.

A theoretical company might save $300 million dollars in yearly operational
costs with a upfront cost of $1 billion to
$INSERT_WHATEVR_BATTERY_SOLUTION_PROVIDER, but if they are exposed to $26
billion to "investments" of a $100 billion total that are expected to perform
for the next 30 years and have to revalue that suddenly (to the downside, to
be clear), then I know they are going to think twice about how to move
forward.

~~~
petra
>> the australian project has little relevance to companies who do seek energy
storage, because their reasons, motivations, are different,

If you'll read about the industry, you'll find this claim generally true.

------
olivermarks
Hawaii and HECO are worth watching closely in the real world of energy and
modern grids. [http://www.utilitydive.com/news/hawaiian-electric-
proposes-n...](http://www.utilitydive.com/news/hawaiian-electric-proposes-new-
cheaper-grid-modernization-plan/446420/)

There is a great deal going on in the energy world right now around storage of
electricity, I think it's a shame opEd websites such as the Guardian feature
and focus on Musk, a single entrepreneur and his companies, over the broader
advances that are unfolding...

~~~
melling
Hawaii gets 85% of its electricity burning imported oil.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Hawaii](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Hawaii)

If solar is cost effective then Hawaii should be an easy place to build it?

~~~
olivermarks
You would think so, but I've been following this for 4 years and there are
huge issues to resolve. There is a pre existing grid designed to distribute
electricity generated from imported oil which is now woefully out of date.
There is huge home solar usage in Hawaii but the grid is incapable of
redistributing surplus power created by owner panels. Storage for
redistribution at a reasonable cost is the big challenge there, and is being
watched closely by other regions and places before they emulate...

From the Energy Dive article I linked to:

'At the end of 2016, about 26% of Hawaiian Electric’s customers’ electricity
was sourced from renewables, Greentech Media notes. Customer owned solar power
was the largest contributor at 34% of the renewables total, followed by wind,
29%, and biomass at 19%.

On the Big Island of Hawaii renewables accounted for 54% of customers’ needs
and on Maui and Molokai it was 37%.'

------
sanxiyn
Why is Snowy Hydro 2.0 "ridiculous" and "silly"? What exactly is advantage of
battery over pumped storage? Big problem with pumped storage is that it needs
specific location, but it seems they already have it.

As I understand, pumped storage is cheaper, more energy efficient, more mature
technology. I understand battery swithes faster. What else?

~~~
acchow
You mentioned location, but that advantage can't really be understated. How
can you have pump storage near every major city? It's not feasible in most
places. Then there is the enormous transmission cost to get the energy to (and
from) that remote location.

Batteries can also meet fluctuations in demand instantly. Hydro cannot.

~~~
sanxiyn
What enormous transmission cost? Total transmission loss of Australia is 5%
(2014).

I already said battery switches faster. You are simply repeating what I said.

~~~
nl
The Snowy Mountain scheme is around 1500km from Adelaide. It might help in the
Eastern States, but transmission losses are significant over that distance,
and in the Eastern States they haven't had the power problems yet.

~~~
zik
Pumped hydro storage is also inefficient - about 20% losses.

------
zyngaro
So basically we are transitioning from a fossil energy based world to lithium
based one. Why does media never talk about the sustainability of build lithium
ion batteries at large scale? Have the recycling problem been sorted out (I
have a couple of lithium ion batteries and I don't know what to do about them)
I also heard that lithium is very very scarce on Earth.

~~~
WJW
It's not talked about in "the media" (at least not front page stuff) because
it is not a huge problem. While "scarce" is relative, global demand until the
year 2100 is estimated to be between 12 and 20 million tons, while currently
known reserves are about 39 million tons. So we should be good for at least 80
years. Recycling is also a solved problem, though we'll have to build a few
more factories to keep up with the increased amount.

Note that eventually, graphene based energy storage may take over anyway. Or
possibly someone will invent proper hydrogen storage.

Finally, you could easily have found multiple studies by respected
universities about the estimated amount of lithium on Earth, about the
feasability of large scale recycling of Li-ion batteries and about
transitioning into a lithium-based economy. If you are willing to take advice,
reading up first before become alarmed and posting concerned comments will
help a lot for your peace of mind.

~~~
philipov
What crystal ball are they using to predict the future out for 80 years? Are
they making the assumption that there will be no technological paradigm shifts
and demand growth will continue along current levels? Do they factor in the
effects of climate change and global instability?

If you use an estimate of demand to justify increasing demand, you
immediately, tautologically invalidate the estimate: the estimate did not
account for your policy decisions based on itself.

~~~
WJW
If you want to know which assumptions they made, why not just read the studies
and see for yourself? To be sure, predicting the future is super difficult. If
we have a global thermonuclear war in 2020, we will probably not need any tons
of lithium at all, what with everyone being dead. Same thing if we get hit by
a really large asteroid, etc. Also if someone ever develops man-portable
fusion reactors we might not need batteries at all. :)

Your point about the self fulfilling aspect of basing policy on research is
well taken, though in this case the researchers used multiple scenarios for
policy development, including one where lithium demand is heavily stimulated
by eg subsidies on EVs and the like. That is the upper part of the range of
12-20 million tons of demand, which is still well below the lower bound of
estimated reserves.

~~~
philipov
No studies were cited. I would love to see them.

------
anovikov
Isn't that an overstatement? Australia's installed generating capacity is 67GW
and about 50% load factor. It needs at least 100 systems like that to make a
significant impact on grid stability. Even in South Australia alone, at least
10x that much is needed.

~~~
sanxiyn
Yup, it is. And you know what? Pumped storage the article calls "ridiculous"
and "silly", is what is needed. It is 10x much, exactly as you said.

~~~
anovikov
Price of battery systems seems to be same now per unit of storage and lower
per unit of peak power. So that's fine: all things being equal, battery is
definitely better than a pumped storage plant.

They just need whole lot more than this 1 battery to solve the problem.

------
burntrelish1273
FYI: 129 MWh would be about 1300 42U-style racks for batteries alone.

Source: there's a guy in socal (Jehu Garcia) building a reclaimed peaker 1 MWh
pack in about 10 racks from used batteries and equipment (50 kW 480VAC
inverter) on the cheap in order to store energy off-peak (plus possibly charge
using solar) and use it at peak supplemented by grid power. This is how
manufacturing and other heavy industry / large electrical consumers can save
money right now in US day-of-use billed grid systems.

~~~
sitkack
I had this idea 10 years go to use flywheels to buy cheap power and re-sell it
during peak demand. Day vs night pricing will quickly normalize.

~~~
lifeformed
Wouldn't some kind of gravity-based storage be cheaper/safer? Just lift some
huge weights with excess energy, lock it in place, and then let gravity pull
it down to reclaim it.

~~~
agumonkey
Both are back in sight these days.

------
politician
Would someone explain what this battery is for or the surrounding context? The
article spends most of its word count on abstract politics.

~~~
mabcat
Briefly and maybe not 100% truthy: the state of South Australia produces a lot
of its electricity from a wind farm. It brings in extra power from another
state over a giant cable (the interconnect). A while ago a storm damaged the
interconnect and this triggered cascading failsafes that shut down a lot of
the state.

The wind farm has been a thumb in the eye of the federal government, who is
huge on coal. The feds lost no time blaming the blackouts on renewables and
sticking it to SA. Elon Musk offered to install a giant battery in what seemed
to be a wild-arse publicity stunt. SA said ok do it, and they're getting a
giant battery and their energy independence back.

~~~
ehnto
I had been lightly skeptical until you framed it as a move in spite of the
federal government. There were some missing pieces to the puzzle in my mind
where I wasn't sure why if we had a technical solution (the interconnector)
then why won't we just solve the policy and pricing problem that stops us
utilizing it.

Partly because I have never seen Australian states as particularly at odds
with eachother or the federal government, but the idea of taking the choice of
coal or renewables into our own hands is actually really compelling.

------
nabla9
I try to do some numbers the best I can.

Assuming cost of $1.25 per MWh (same as in California) this costs roughly $150
million. You would need 260 of these to cover all Australian households for
$39 billion.

This is dayscale storage and emergency supply to stabilize electricity grid.
It provides emergency supply for 30,000 homes and grid stabilization. Lithium
energy competes in this category with Flywheel energy storage systems. 129
MWh's battery used alone could supply the daily electricity for something like
7000 household daily electricity usage. If it supplies only 1/4 of the
electricity then 30,000 homes is realistic.

If Tesla learns how to __reuse __lithium with reasonable cost, this can scale.
Currently Tesla recycles lithium into bricks used in construction.

The price would be $4900 per per household.

sources:

1\. [http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-
electricity...](http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-electricity-
consumption)

2\. [https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/07/all-the-details-on-
teslas...](https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/07/all-the-details-on-teslas-giant-
australian-batteryt/)

EDIT: I used average household energy usage and number of homes but used
Australian population. The cost and number of units required was 3X too high.
1̶2̶0̶

~~~
calafrax
So, totally worth it ($120 billion) for a 0.01% reduction in global ghg
emissions.

~~~
nabla9
Roughly $4800 per household. The price of huge flat screen. If it scales, it's
acceptable solution for rich countries with cheap wind or solar.

(if it truly scales, the price will drop dramatically when volumes grow).

------
ekianjo
For an article that pretends to spread the truth, its surprisingly short of
any proof, figure or any kind of data to support the political opinion. Isnt
that what they ought to be doing?

------
everyone
When was the truth era?

I get the feeling that revelations similar to the "post truth" idea here, ie.
commentators being shocked by the barefaced lying of the powerful, have been
happening continuously for thousands of years.

Apocryphal or nor this is apt..

An Assyrian clay tablet dating to around 2800 B.C. bears the inscription: “Our
Earth is degenerate in these later days; there are signs that the world is
speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no
longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book and the end of the
world is evidently approaching.”

------
Animats
Can Tesla deliver the batteries in the next 100 days? Tesla had a battery
shortage last quarter when production couldn't keep up, and had to delay some
car deliveries.[1] With Model 3 deliveries starting, is Tesla's battery
production sufficient?

[1] [http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/03/technology/tesla-battery-
car...](http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/03/technology/tesla-battery-car-
deliveries/index.html)

~~~
imron
When this first hit the news a few months back, Musk said they'd do it on 90
days or it'd be free.

That's a pretty big incentive to get it done quickly.

~~~
jazoom
Now it's 100 days or free.

~~~
prawn
No, it was always 100 days or free.

 _" Tesla will get the system installed and working 100 days from contract
signature or it is free. That serious enough for you?"_

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/840032197637685249](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/840032197637685249)

------
noir_lord
The Small bordering on Medium size company I work for has a 30KW solar array
on the roof of it's factory.

With batteries they'd basically be able to run the factory close to off grid,
while the equipment requires high peak power it's average load is vastly
lower.

------
owebmaster
I wonder if after another 10 years cycle Elon Musk will deliver or he will
just "aim higher" and we'll still see "projection articles" instead of talk
about results.

------
sintaxi
I'm happy this is happening but if it requires $50M in tax payers dollars it's
not exactly viable now is it?

~~~
nl
As a South Australian, I'm (very!!) happy to trade a few tax dollars for much
lower power prices. The extra tax is more than made up for in savings.

On this particular topic, the South Australian government's interests and mine
are precisely aligned: We are both getting screwed over by power generators
exploiting the intermittent nature of renewables to make bigger profits. Did
you know they deliberately keep gas peaking generators _off_ when it would be
profitable to run them, because they can force the price to spike even higher
and exploit the minimum billing periods?

I'm all for market driven solutions, but technology driven price disruption is
a well known reason for market failure, and that seems to be what is going on
here.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
_happy to trade a few tax dollars for much lower power prices_

That's _optimistic_.

I _guarantee_ you will be paying more for electricity generation because of
this battery. There's _no way_ the incumbents would allow this thing to be
connected to the grid if there wasn't a dollar (quite a few dollars) in it for
them.

Giving money and power to politicians is like giving car keys and whiskey to
teenage boys.

Regards, former SA resident.

~~~
nl
_There 's no way the incumbents would allow this thing to be connected to the
grid if there wasn't a dollar (quite a few dollars) in it for them._

There are no major non-renewable incumbents left in SA. The renewables love
this because it lets them load shift. That's good for them but good for me
too.

AGL has a small gas fired station but screwed up during the outage by not
firing up one generator. That lost them any friends they have, especially
since they blamed high gas prices, which the Federal Government saw as a
criticism of them.

The interstate incumbents hated it enough to get the Federal Government to
look at stopping it[1]. But then the Victorian Hazelwood coal fired plant
closure was announced, and the coal industry lost a lot of credibility with
the federal government. Basically the incumbents are suffering and are
_rapidly_ losing political power.

[1] [http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-
stories/2017/03/14/south-...](http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-
stories/2017/03/14/south-australia-to-unveil-new-energy-strategy.html)

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
> _There are no major non-renewable incumbents left in SA._

AGL operates 8.562 gigawatts of fossil fuel (coal / gas) power plants, and
2.33 gigawatt renewables (hydro / wind / solar).[1]

The 1.28 gigawatt gas fired Torrens Island Power Station in Adelaide _is the
largest power station in South Australia_.[2]

South Australia has 16 operating wind farms with a total installed capacity of
about 1.473 gigawatt.[3]

It definitely looking like we'll see, in our lifetimes, a future where wind +
storage provides a significant majority of electricity in South Australia. My
argument is there's no way this future will also provider _cheaper_
electricity.

Why charge less when you can make people pay _more_?

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGL_Energy#Operations_and_sign...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGL_Energy#Operations_and_significant_assets)

2\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrens_Island_Power_Station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrens_Island_Power_Station)

3\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wind_farms_in_South_Au...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wind_farms_in_South_Australia)

