
Japan Building Giant Battery Systems to Store Solar Power - prostoalex
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2015/06/24/japan-building-giant-battery-systems-to-store-solar-power/?mod=e2fb
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Hermel
That's 600 MWh for 257 million USD. Tesla's powerwall has 10 KWh for 3500 USD.
Interestingly, that's about the same price point.

Efficiency-wise, the centralized Japanese solution makes probably more sense
for large centralized solar plants, whereas Tesla's model probably makes more
sense for self-owned solar panels.

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greglindahl
Which Tesla model? There are 2: the Powerwall for home use, and the Powerpack,
for businesses. The Powerpack starts at 100kWh, and goes as big as you have
money for. Initial reservations are mainly for the Powerpack.

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

Grid storage that stabilizes a grid is much more valuable than storage of
power to shift production to non-peak times.

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seunosewa
Whats the difference between stabilizing a grid and storing power produced at
non-peak times so you can use it at peak times?

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toomuchtodo
One is much more profitable, because it requires much faster response times.

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jmadsen
"the lack of compatibility between regional power utility grids."

For folks outside the country, the grids here are actually like 19th century
European railroad gauges in different countries. Meaning, after the tsunami in
the north, when the nuclear power plants were shut down, they literally could
not move electricity from one part of the country to another where it was
needed (or could, but it was crazily difficult).

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dvdkhlng
Yes, japan is split into a 60 Hz (west) and a 50 Hz (east) power distribution
systems. They do have four main frequency converter stations that can move
power between the two networks, three of them are shown on this power
distribution map:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Shinano#/media/File:Power...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Shinano#/media/File:Power_Grid_of_Japan_as_of_2008.png)

Taken together they have a capacity of around one Gigawatt. Here is some more
information on the used technology:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higashi-
Shimizu_Frequency_Conv...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higashi-
Shimizu_Frequency_Converter)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakuma_Dam#HVDC_frequency_conv...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakuma_Dam#HVDC_frequency_converter)

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Ntrails
_Taken together they have a capacity of around one Gigawatt._

Not even enough to power a flux capacitor :(

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mikekchar
Google doesn't help me, but my wife often tells me that our area (along the
coast of Suruga bay in Shizuoka prefecture) has the most annual sunshine in
all of Japan (I won't argue with her ;-) ). Definitely the number of solar
installations here is dramatically rising. Practically every day I see a new
one. 5 years ago it was wind turbines (it's also insanely windy here most of
the time...)

Shizuoka is home to a very large amount of car and motorcylce manufacturing
and after the the Tohoku earthquake they got creative with scheduling workers
based on available power. My understanding is that the big manufacturers made
a rota took turns using the power. If they manage to get a very large amount
of solar power running (which it definitely looks like they are aiming for), I
wonder if they will end up scheduling work based on the weather report.

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GregBuchholz
Here's one map of solar insolation for Japan:

[http://solargis.info/doc/_pics/freemaps/1000px/ghi/SolarGIS-...](http://solargis.info/doc/_pics/freemaps/1000px/ghi/SolarGIS-
Solar-map-Japan-en.png)

...and for the world:

[http://solargis.info/doc/_pics/freemaps/1000px/ghi/SolarGIS-...](http://solargis.info/doc/_pics/freemaps/1000px/ghi/SolarGIS-
Solar-map-World-map-en.png)

~~~
mikekchar
Cool! Thanks. Definitely it's in the darkest red area, so she could well be
right!

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tempodox
Finally someone starts putting two and two together. Mankind's preoccupation
with lethal / more dangerous power conversion methods has lasted more than
long enough.

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dragontamer
Still smaller than the US's largest battery.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Sta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Station)

3-Gigawatt turbines for 10-hours == roughly 30 Gigawatt-hours of storage
potential. IIRC, the project only cost $1.6 Billion in 70s money, so after
some inflation... it's still a pretty cheap storage mechanism.

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ahains
I love the simplicity of water / gravity energy storage.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-
storage_hydroelectricit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-
storage_hydroelectricity)

It obviously requires the right kind of terrain etc, but it is very very cool.

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markvdb
50000 kilowatt, for how many milliseconds? The phone in my pocket has a 500
_giga_watt battery. What a pity it's only 700mAh...

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kondro
I know you probably already realise this, but they obviously mean kWh.

I normally wouldn't comment, but to most people a kW is a kWh and, in context,
it's obvious they're talking about kWh.

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reitzensteinm
It's possible that they accidentally quoted the maximum power rather than the
energy stored, which would make the figure correct but not what most would
expect.

