
A Massive Battery that Can Store Solar and Wind Energy - antr
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-kaprun-hydroelectric-station-battery/
======
chrido
As a side note, since the article also mentions that:

Since 1/10 Austria and Germany are not in the same energy zone anymore, the
pricing zone was split up. This was done because too much renewable power
feeding in at near zero cost in Germany was flooding the markets and pushing
too much strain on the grid. Heavily needed power lines weren't built because
people were protesting.

So the first week has passed were the zones are actually split up and we can
see that energy prices are way higher in Austria than in Germany, see [1].
Sure, a more definite answer would need to look at a longer time span. The
highest difference actually was on 3/10, where baseload in Germany was 18.29
€/MWh compared to 60.40€/MWh. And peakload on 3/10 was 17.13 €/MWh in Germany
compared to 65.83 €/Mwh in Austria. Solar generation on 3/10 in Germany was
12.5 GW!

So far good for Germany, since they anyway subsidize solar and wind heavily
and now have the low prices more or less for them self (not totally because
cross border capacities, [4])

I haven't looked so far in the costs of the auxiliary energy, really curious
how they develop. Germany has in total probably around 385 MW in battery
storage already [3] and lots of battery storage projected for 2019.

[1] [https://www.epexspot.com/en/market-
data/dayaheadauction](https://www.epexspot.com/en/market-data/dayaheadauction)
[2] [https://www.eex-
transparency.com/homepage/power/germany/prod...](https://www.eex-
transparency.com/homepage/power/germany/production/usage/solar-wind-power-
production) [3]
[https://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2018/03/battery...](https://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2018/03/battery-
storage-enters-growth-phase-in-germany.html) [4]
[https://www.entsoe.eu/data/map/](https://www.entsoe.eu/data/map/)

~~~
rurban
What everybody misses is the different need during the spikes due out the day.
In the morning and at noon the grid needs for a short time a massive amount of
energy, which can only be provided by such "pump batteries". That's why
Austria can sell this peak energy at much higher prices. On the other side the
new northern german wind energy cut the prices dramatically on the non-peak
hours.

My idea on this was to use the batteries of the new electric cars to store
energy and take it for the peaks. This would need cooperation with the
carparks of the big companies to provide free battery loading during the day
vs sucking off peak voltages in the morning and at noon. In the late afternoon
the battery must be full, what happens in the morning and at noon is for the
grid. This solves the electric car problem, and the grid problem with not
enough north-south lines.

~~~
Bluestrike2
That kind of integrated approach--with vehicle-to-grid power flow alongside
more general coordinated charging--could have clear advantages, especially
given the possible growing pains from uncoordinated charging.[0][1] V2G isn't
a new subject; it's been around for a while now, and the UK even announced a
large research grant on the subject earlier this year.[2] Most of that
research looks at V2G in terms of how it can be used to help mitigate the
impacts of EV charging in particular and short-term spikes associated with
them, rather than say general grid storage. So it's more of a longer-term
matter, than the immediate concerns of building out storage capacity.

One of the biggest difficulties is going to be dealing with the economics of
battery degradation. You can limit the pull on any given battery to somewhat
lessen the impact, but doing so also limits V2G's impact on the grid.
Presumably, utilities would pay for battery usage. If so, how does that affect
the economics: I can't say either way, but I'd expect the marginal cost of
'renting' EV batteries to be greater than just buying your own for dedicated
storage.

0\.
[http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aabe97/m...](http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aabe97/meta)

1\.
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-017-0074-z](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-017-0074-z)

2\.
[https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=133490](https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=133490)

------
carwyn
This pump storage facility has been running in North Wales since 1984:

[http://electricmountain.co.uk/Dinorwig-Power-
Station](http://electricmountain.co.uk/Dinorwig-Power-Station)

It has three main roles on the national grid:

1\. Near instant response for peak demand fluctuations (e.g. half time during
major sports events). 2\. Bootstrapping generator for rebooting the national
grid should we ever need to. 3\. Grid frequency regulation (keeping that AC at
50Hz)

There are a number of projects in progress to look at consumer side Demand
Side Regulation (DSR) to provide the latter two grid services without having
to carve out mountains or build massive battery farm like Tesla.

~~~
perty
UK Realtime energy stats -
[http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/](http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/)

Electric mountain is primarily designed to handle the shortist term electrical
demands ie putting kettles on (massive demand spike) during tv breaks for the
most popular TV programmes. Fortunately the video recorder and subsequent
personal recording technology and internet streaming on-demand helps to lesson
the demand on Electric Mountain which is why we may never see another one
built in the UK. However our demand for technology is driving up the need for
more Nuclear and to a lessor extent coal fired power stations, but the ARM cpu
is helping to play its part in reducing energy requirements as will parallel
processing to mitigate the need for super fast AMD64 cpu's.

Base line demands are met (in order of scaling up or down to meet demand) is
nuclear, then coal, gas, hydro including electric mountain. Electric mountain
pumps the water back up when surplus electricity is available during the
night.

During the week in Feb 2018 when the Beast from the East hit the UK, the
realtime gas price on the energy market went off the scale. As more evidence
and awareness stacks up that we are going into what is dubbed the Eddy Minimum
(a grand solar minimum last seen some 500years ago), so people will take more
steps to have a certain level of redundancy built into their homes (where
possible LPG/OIL tanks on their property) in order to help mitigate extreme
weather events.

Currently if everyone were to live a US lifestyle we would need 4 planet
Earths, a UK lifestyle 2.5 planet Earths and so on.

~~~
Reason077
_" the video recorder and subsequent personal recording technology and
internet streaming on-demand helps to lesson the demand"_

Demand may be getting more stable, but supply is going in the other direction!
There is a need for energy storage as the UK grid moves to more renewable and
intermittent energy sources, predominantly wind.

Pumped hydro stations like Dinorwig can help lessen the need for fossil-fueled
thermal power plants to provide spinning reserve / frequency maintenance. So
can batteries.

Whether we will see any more pumped hydro built in the UK probably comes down
to cost and environmental concerns, when considered relative to other storage
technologies like batteries and electric vehicles with V2G.

------
scott_ci
Pumped storage analysis: [https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/11/pump-up-the-
storage/](https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/)

spoiler: not remotely possible to scale large enough for total world needs.

"If we drained one meter from every upper lake, we would get 54 billion kWh of
energy: about a sixth of the target capacity. If performed over seven days,
the flow would be 375,000 cubic meters per second, or 125 times the normal
flow over the falls."

"We would need 10,000 Raccoon Mountains to meet my baseline energy capacity"

~~~
dragontamer
> spoiler: not remotely possible to scale large enough for total world needs.

Yeah, not with those assumptions.

Storing enough energy for 7-days worth of zero-sun and zero-wind is going to
be basically impossible across all known energy storage technologies. We'll
likely have to run peaker plants during such an extended outage.

But we're not even trying to solve the 7-days worth of energy problem. We're
starting with: lets save 3-hours worth of energy, so that the 6pm sun can be
used for air-conditioning until 9pm or so.

Which we're not at yet (see the "Duck Curve" or "Nessie curve").

Besides, being able to store energy for 1 or 2 hours is still SUPER useful.
Wind is strongest at night, while Solar is strongest during noon. Having
energy at dawn (sun isn't strong yet) or twilight (sun is setting, but the
wind hasn't picked up yet) is going to be a huge portion of our future energy
strategy.

\-----------

A huge part of the problem can be solved behaviorally and economically. We can
change the price of electricity based on how easy it is to produce. 12:00 noon
(highest sun power) can be cheaper, and 3am power (max wind energy) can also
be cheaper.

Night-time energy can be used to power electric cars. 12:00 noon power can be
used for factory work and other high-energy tasks (Air Conditioning, Washing
Machines).

We all can change our behavior to reduce our energy demand between 5pm and
8pm, to reduce the Nessie curve / duck curve. And we can use economics to set
the price higher to encourage others to follow our lead.

\---------

Throw down a bit of nuclear, and keep a few natural gas peaker plants active
for emergencies, and I think we've got a strong future for energy.

At the end of the day: Pumped Hydro is the ONLY GW-hr solution to this energy
storage question. CAES is hundreds-of-MW-hrs, while Lithium Ion is also only
hundreds-of MW-hrs.

That's just how the cookie crumbles: we don't have any other technology to
store GW-hrs of energy.

~~~
WhompingWindows
When is there zero sun? I didn't realize that was a possibility on our
spinning planet

~~~
galuano1
Cloudy days.

~~~
pjc50
A far more serious consideration for solar is the changing seasons, especially
at non-tropical latitudes. I graphed the output of my solar panels (56 north,
Scotland) and it's really apparent:
[https://flatline.org.uk/daystats.html](https://flatline.org.uk/daystats.html)

~~~
PhantomGremlin
So those panels are basically useless for 3 or 4 months of the year, i.e.
November, December, January, February.

Would there be much improvement if you could tweak the orientation to match
the seasons? E.g. tilt them down toward the horizon during the winter?

It's certainly a huge complication to have motorized panels that move all the
time to track the sun. But maybe it wouldn't be that much of a hassle to go
out there and manually reorient them (just in 1 axis) a few times a year?

~~~
pjc50
They're fixed to the roof, so making them movable would be a risk to their
safety and wind resistance while being fairly difficult to access (and ladders
are dangerous). For a fairly small benefit. It's not just the angle but the
sunrise and sunset are a lot closer together.

------
OliverJones
The interesting thing here is the hint about double taxation; apparently this
pumped storage facility pays fee when it ingests mWh to store, and again when
it releases them for use. According to the article, that scares away
investment in upgrading the facility.

The Bloomergites certainly have the chops to unravel and explain this corner
of utility economics. Wish they'd do it! The smart-grid future holds all kinds
of energy flows into and out of storage. Storage can be characterized in a
bunch of ways.

* Total energy capacity (mWh)

* Peak discharge rate (mW)

* Rampup time for discharge. Rampup is most of the content of this article. The 100mW Tesla-built Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia has a subsecond rampup time, which makes its energy very valuable for short periods of time.

* Local efficiency (mWh discharged / mWh ingested)

* System efficiency (mWh at source / mWh at sink, counting transmission loss. The lines up to a mountain dam and back down have losses).

* Money efficiency. Taxes, fees, etc.

* Peak ingestion rate (mW)

* Rampup time for ingestion

* Capital cost (please include externalities like decommissioning and disposal costs)

* Expected lifetime (pump storage lifetime is very long)

* Operating cost

The future smart grid needs a finely tuned balance of capacity, rate, and
rampup time to succeed.

------
walrus01
Pumped storage is a great idea for places where the topography will work with
it. But it's expensive to build new. The multi-hundred-million dollar costs of
building a new pumped storage facility might be compared to the new costs of
building a massive gridscale battery (what Tesla did in South Australia). I'm
hopeful that liquid metal/flow batteries designed for grid scale sized
applications will become economical in a $/kWh stored rate. There's a lot of
applications for batteries which are too big/bulky/dangerous/hot for domestic
use or vehicle use, but are perfectly suited for deployment in an electrical
grid application.

Electrical grid operators are already really experienced with the process of
building substations, basically get a square or rectangular plot of land,
level it, put down concrete pads for transformers and switch gear, cover the
rest of it in gravel, erect fence with barbed wire around the perimeter. Now
do the same but add more concrete pads for big, 20'/40' container sized
batteries.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
_Pumped storage is a great idea for places where the topography will work with
it._

Don't forget NIMBY.

About 56 years ago the utility for New York City wanted to build a pumped
storage plant about 30 miles north. It was vigorously opposed and eventually
defeated.

Why should people who live in pretty rural areas sacrifice their quality of
life to help those who live in a crime infested, filty concrete jungle? That's
a bit hyperbolic, but that's what NIMBY boils down to.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_King_Mountain_(New_York)...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_King_Mountain_\(New_York\)#History)

------
StreakyCobra
For the curious there is an ongoing construction of such pumped-storage in the
canton of Valais in Switzerland. It is called Nant de Drance [1] and is
located at the Emosson Dam, between the "Emosson Lake" and "Old Emosson Lake".

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nant_de_Drance_Hydropower_Plan...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nant_de_Drance_Hydropower_Plant)

~~~
Shivetya
Carter's dam in Georgia has been operational since 1977 doing pretty much the
same thing. Pretty sure the idea has been around for ages but with solar and
wind power needing storage it might see more use. The one consideration is
that recent environment trends have been against dam building in some areas
and even to the point of removing them.

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

On a side note, the imagery in the article is very good

------
delbel
This is really interesting. I spent last night calculating a small solar setup
for my property. I have 4x220w panels, 4x100amp deep cycles, and a few
inverters: one 1000w, and another 600w. And a 20 amp solar charge controller.
Basically the most minimal setup.

I was trying to figure out how to design a system that, given 4 hours of full
sunlight at the maximum output of the solar charger (300w) or 4 * 300 w =
1200w total daily charging of my deep cycles. If the system is 100% efficient
(it isn't), this gives me 50w a hour over a 24 hour period. 1200w / 24 hr =
50w. But my solar panels exceed the ability of the charge controller. How can
I use that to my advantage? I have a well and a holding tank. I was trying to
figure out a circuit, perhaps an Arduino program/circuit, with voltage/amp
sensors and relays to do this: If there is enough sun, charge the battery. If
the batteries are full, turn on the well pump into the holding tank (there's a
pressure switch to turn it off when the tank is full). And put the holding
tank up on the hill -- which should give me 25-30psi (up 45-50ft). Then I was
trying to figure out how to optimize my well pump, or use a DC motor. I might
look into salvaging a 2hp DC motor from a treadmill and retrofit it onto a
pump housing. Anyway I am trying to optimize for extreme budget. 50w an hour
isn't a lot, but it is enough to run a few light bulbs and my tiny
refrigerator. I might be able to run a RPi and charge some 18650 batteries for
flashlights.

~~~
Liveanimalcams
Why not buy another 20amp charge controller, they are like $20?

I ran into similar problems when I was trying to make my own solar AC this
summer. I found the best solution for a budget build is to use used panels.
Instead of being able to afford 1 I could get 3. Now I have enough power to
charge my battery fully and run the AC.

~~~
delbel
Yes a solar charge controller would be the best next move. Do these cheap
$14-20 charge controllers last?

Thanks

~~~
adbge
Hey, man, can you drop me an email at robbpseaton at gmail dot com? I have
some questions about what sort of initial structure you'd choose to build on
your land if you were to do it all over again. I'm interested in doing
something similar.

------
eaguyhn
A similar example - San Luis Reservoir in California consists entirely of
pumped water. Its main purpose is to act as a regulator supply for the state's
aqueduct, but to offset costs the operators do the same trick of generating
electricity during the day, and replenishing the reservoir at night.

There are times when this is not practical, but when it is it helps to defray
operating costs.

------
downandout
I am curious how much of an effect evaporation has on the efficiency of these
systems. You spend energy pumping the water uphill, then it literally vanishes
and that energy is wasted. I would imagine that in a hot climate like the one
Hoover Dam is in, evaporation would be a non-trivial issue should they go
through with the retrofit.

~~~
ema
I assume evaporation is gonna be below an inch a day in even the most hot and
dry climates. Considering the total height of the water column it's
negligible.

~~~
allannienhuis
I'm not disagreeing, but wouldn't you need to compare the total volume lost to
evaporation to the total volume of water pumped (== cost) to have a sense for
whether it's a significant factor?

Its hard to build up a casual sense for how much water is lost to evaporation
in most lakes we have experience with because the lake's level is based on
geography (level of the outlet) when there's a source of water coming in to
replenish it. It could be a larger factor than we think.

That said, I expect that the efficiency losses in the pumping and generation
steps would dwarf evaporation. Any storage system has some losses; the ability
to store larger volumes makes up for efficiency disadvantages compared to
things like batteries might have.

~~~
seanalltogether
I wonder if evaporation is offset entirely by water that naturally flows into
the reservoir. The graphic on the page seems to indicate that there is always
a small amount of water flowing down through the system regardless of whether
any uphill pumping occurs, which would indicate there's always a surplus of
water.

------
dicroce
I prefer this idea:

[https://qz.com/1355672/stacking-concrete-blocks-is-a-
surpris...](https://qz.com/1355672/stacking-concrete-blocks-is-a-surprisingly-
efficient-way-to-store-energy/)

------
allannienhuis
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pumped-
storage_hydroel...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pumped-
storage_hydroelectric_power_stations)

------
Pxtl
The challenge with energy storage is the tradeoff between cost and efficiency.
On the one end you have batteries that are hella efficient but expensive, and
then you have a spectrum going Hydrogen -> Pumped Energy -> Compressed Air
(cheapest and least efficient)

The question is whether we can build enough wind or solar power that doesn't
just meet our needs when it's outputting well, but overshoots them by like
500% so we can use cheap and inefficient energy storage.

------
the_arun
I guess enabling individual homes to generate/store energy needed to run their
home is more scalable than these so called huge beautiful batteries. But for
now, they are good and buy time for innovations in home batteries.

~~~
WalterBright
A very simple, zero-maintenance, low cost "battery" for storing energy in the
home is a chunk of concrete. When power is cheap, heat/cool the chunk. When
power is expensive, blow air over the chunk to extract the heat/cool.

Such a "battery" could very easily keep the house warm or cool at night
depending on the season.

What's required to make this work is to vary the cost of electricity to the
consumer, which will incentivize such solutions.

A pile of rocks can also work.

------
emp
This scheme has been Running in South Africa since 1981:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drakensberg_Pumped_Storage_S...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drakensberg_Pumped_Storage_Scheme)

It’s interesting as it is a network of a few dams and rivers over a very large
area.

------
NoNameHaveI
Great idea. Only problem is, I live in Iowa. Wind energy abounds. Adequate
topography does not.

------
larrydag
Sounds like energy arbitrage using physics. I love the idea. I wonder what it
will look like in a decade when its adopted more or will it go away when
chemical battery storage is cheaper and renewable energy is more efficient.

~~~
KirinDave
The difference (or perhaps not) in this case is that it's phenomenally
inefficent, requires (and in the process of creation, destroys) unique
geography, and isn't viable in many places due to fresh water shortage.

Pumped Hydro is actually pretty awful. Compressed air might work for home
needs but will never service industrial needs. Let's hope that a better
chemical battery based on sodium and carbon is a reality soon
([https://phys.org/news/2018-09-high-capacity-sodium-ion-
lithi...](https://phys.org/news/2018-09-high-capacity-sodium-ion-lithium-
rechargeable-batteries.html)).

~~~
PhantomGremlin
_it 's phenomenally inefficent_

I don't understand that at all. If you're generating more than you're
consuming, then you lose 100% of everything you can't store. Which means 0%
efficiency past some point!

But _" the round-trip energy efficiency of PSH varies between 70%–80%, with
some sources claiming up to 87%."_[1]

That's not as good as batteries, which are probably better than 90%, but it
doesn't seem bad at all when compared to 0%.

IMO your other arguments are much stronger. Bad to destroy unique geography.
Not viable in many places, whether it's because of no water or because of bad
geography.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-
storage_hydroelectricit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-
storage_hydroelectricity)

~~~
KirinDave
I'm quite skeptical of that 87%, because it's almost exclusively a question of
how the energy was generated and odds are, it was generated and shunted from
fossil sources that don't have that efficiency. So even by that metric it's
87% of whatever engine you used to make the energy for the pumps.

Whereas even bad batteries have 99% efficiency even counting discharge loss.
The problems with those are that they rely on relatively rare metals
associated with conflict regions, hence my hopes that we reach a sodium-based
battery that will have similar properties to lithium.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
_it was generated and shunted from fossil sources that don 't have that
efficiency_

Ahhh ... you raise an interesting point which I don't recall reading elsewhere
in this discussion (but there may have been new comments posted since my
previous pass thru the discussion).

A newly built natural gas plant has an efficiency of perhaps 60%[1]. Recently
completed nuclear plants, such as AP1000 based in China, have an efficiency of
about 34%.[2]

That's 60% or 34% at the source! There are additional losses from that point
forward, whether the energy goes to run pumped hydro or is simply stored in
batteries until needed.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle#Efficiency_of_C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle#Efficiency_of_CCGT_plants)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanmen_Nuclear_Power_Station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanmen_Nuclear_Power_Station)

------
jonahhorowitz
There's another one of these near Aspen, Colorado. The Mt. Elbert Pumped-
Storage Powerplant. If you're ever nearby, they give tours.

------
visarga
Isn't evaporation a problem? Lots of water could evaporate before it gets
discharged.

------
solarkraft
Okay, good feature, not new, though.

------
leowoo91
Isnt that half of the energy wasted while pumping the water to the higher
grounds?

~~~
kijin
Most of the energy that goes into pumping water uphill can be recovered when
the water is released downhill through the turbines. Existing pumped-storage
hydroelectric plants have efficiencies around 70~80% which is way better than
half.

Besides, you get free power if your upper reservoir naturally gets a lot of
inflow or precipitation :)

~~~
solarkraft
This is some pretty good efficiency. Lithium-ion batteries are more efficient
for sure, but also quite a bit more expensive, I'm guessing.

Storing electric energy by just raising some mass seems like a pretty good
concept - I wonder why It's not adopted further.

~~~
ben_w
You need a lot of land and specific terrain; still water isn’t carbon
neutral(!); and the nature of the things means that if it suffers structural
failure the death toll makes nuclear accidents look like almost nothing.

[https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/09/hundreds-new-dams-
co...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/09/hundreds-new-dams-could-mean-
trouble-our-climate)

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

~~~
strainer
" if it suffers structural failure the death toll makes nuclear accidents look
like almost nothing"

You compare a hypothetical dam disaster, with nuclears record so far - its
clearly worth reconsidering that comparison. Nuclear plants also consume large
amounts of water, and other resources so could not be considered carbon
neutral by your own measure.

Reservoirs are large lakes, creating them entails ecological disruption but
not consumption or degradation in the long term.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Not sure where this comparison is going? One dam disaster (Banqiao Dam) caused
more death and destruction that almost all other disasters combined. In fact
failure of nuclear plants has had remarkably few verifiable deaths.

And compared to the energy one nuclear plant produces, dams seem to have
vastly worse death-per-benefit statistics.

Damming a river can cause ecosystem collapse downstream. That's degradation,
as I understand the word. And its definitely long-term.

~~~
makomk
Nuclear proponents always point to the Banqiao Dam disaster, and it's always a
misleading argument because that dam was built to control downstream flooding
as well as provide power and its failure was probably attributable to how the
flood control aspect was mismanaged - by holding back too much water for too
long out of fear of downstream flooding, they ended up overfilling the
reservoir. If China hadn't bothered with hydroelectric power, the dam would
still have to have been built and all those people would still have died when
it failed, you just wouldn't be able to use their deaths to make nuclear power
look better. (Also, nuclear power didn't exist back when that dam was put into
operation, and given the quality of engineering that went into it that's
probably a good thing.)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Rationalizations can be made for nuclear as well. But it doesn't touch the
evidence that dam failure has and may continue to be the far greater risk.

