
Storage ‘not fundamentally needed’ for future power grid, scientists say - rbanffy
http://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/storage-not-fundamentally-needed-for-future-power-grid-scientists-say/?utm_content=bufferda0ba&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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ocschwar
Take a look at the major power consumers in your house.

You have HVAC. Refrigeration. Your washer. Your dryer. And your dishwasher.

Each one of those things is inherently a form of energy storage, because you
don't need any of those to start up or stop at the same milisecond where you
flip the switch.

What's left?

Lighting. Entertainment. Communication.

All of these you do expect to consumer power on demand without any time slack.
But the major loads I listed above can defer to the minor loads that demand
that kind of priority.

So with a little TCP/IP to coordinate activities around your house, your need
for power storage declines considerably.

~~~
oceanplexian
Your house!?

I think this misses the elephant in the room. Large industrial machinery. Data
centers. Manufacturing. Electrified transportation. At the place I work, we
use more electricity in a single, 19 inch high density server rack than your
entire neighborhood. We have rooms full of batteries like the Tesla Powerwall
and would be lucky if they could operate for 10 minutes.

~~~
adrianN
Huge loads like Aluminium smelters are already "smart" and cooperate with the
electricity providers, so there is not as much left to gain there.

~~~
askvictor
Yes and no; you can't just switch off an aluminium smelter with destroying it;
it takes quite a bit of time to ramp it down. I think that for forecast high
demand they shut down production in a planned way.

------
WalterBright
The article doesn't mention a fundamental point. Change the price of
electricity from moment to moment based on the supply. This will obviate much
of the need for storage, since a lot of electricity usage is elastic (car
battery charging, HVAC, etc.) and can be time-shifted.

~~~
RealityVoid
This assumes automatic adjustment of consumption on the consumer end. I doubt
individual residential consumers will look at the time and the consumption and
plug their appliances according to the network for a few cents. I do not know
if industrial usage is enough to move the needle here. Maybe someone can chime
in with some data?

~~~
maccard
If I had a smart dishwasher or a smart washing machine that could turn on or
prep hot water when the demand is low, it could work.

~~~
Sir_Substance
If every smart dishwasher does the same thing, the price will surge across a
time period shorter than the minimum run time of your dishwasher. That
stratagy only works if you're the only one doing it.

~~~
spydum
I think you are simplifying the model a bit too far. Peak load is very likely
not driven by dishwashers...

------
Animats
_" The one question we will have to deal with as policymakers is do we want a
subsidy regime for storage, or can it can be delivered by market forces
alone."_

Right. That's the policy issue. Government subsidies for batteries would be a
huge giveaway to battery manufacturers. California [1] and Sweden [2] have
already offered subsidies. That may not be a good thing.

[1] [https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Will-
California...](https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Will-Californias-
New-Bigger-SGIP-Subsidy-Accelerate-Energy-Storage) [2]
[https://cleantechnica.com/2016/11/22/sweden-will-
offer-60-su...](https://cleantechnica.com/2016/11/22/sweden-will-
offer-60-subsidy-residential-battery-storage-costs/)

------
rb808
I agree storage is required if we continue to have flat rate power charges for
users, but implementing variable power pricing for consumers it reduces the
need for storage and is really over due. IE power should be cheaper on windier
days with moderate temperatures. Expensive if it suddenly gets hot and cloudy.
And users should know what the rates are.

Users smart enough to change their electricity consumption eg night rates -
they need more information to improve even more. Smart appliances will soon
follow.

~~~
firebird84
FPL has started doing this based on the biggest load signal (time of day).
We're charged peak rates and non-peak rates, and the peak rate is about 2x the
non-peak.

Unfortunately, many consumers live in older apartments and/or are more
transient than most, so there's less incentive to invest in energy efficiency.
The landlord is responsible for appliances/AC, but not the power, so there's
no incentive to do anything except buy the minimally sufficient hardware for
the occupant.

I think if we start to change some of the perverse incentives in the
lessor/lessee relationship this will also have some significant effect on
power consumption.

~~~
floatrock
What would something like this look like? There's no incentive on the part of
the inhabitant to conserve if the landlord covers electricity, so clearly it's
not as simple on that.

------
matt_heimer
Title of the article is misleading. The article title seems to imply that we
just don't need storage. Really it is about needing to worry about on-demand
output as we convert to more renewable (wind/solar) power generation. The only
brief mention of what can take the place of storage in a renewable world is
thermal and hydro generation.

~~~
CodeWriter23
The whole article is misleading. Hydro and geothermal are the only mentioned
"flexible" substitutes for storage because this is a hit piece written by the
old guard. "Flexible" is code for coal and gas plants that are currently fired
up on demand already. C'mon now, use a little critical thinking and some
follow the money. There isn't enough hydro and geothermal installed base to
handle the load of the night time / non-windy day use cases.

------
wavegeek
They are saying that storage is not needed in the grid because

a) Households will have storage in the form of batteries b) We will replace
the existing grid with a grid that advises devices of he cost of electricity.
c) We will replace existing electricity using devices and systems and devices
smart enough to turn themselves off when the cost of electiricity gets too
high.

So, storage is actually needed and all we need to do is spend massive amounts
on updating the grid and replacing devices to make this possible.

It annoys me that there are a lot of hand-waving articles like this but I have
a lot of trouble finding solid analysis of the practicality of a renewables
based energy system.

I am not convinced it will work at all, let alone at a reasonable cost.

~~~
bgammon
Are you suggesting the grid will turn into an interconnected graph of power
supply lines with a routers and a routing protocol to supply power dynamically
based on usage? Sounds a lot like our favorite graph.

There are obvious political problems with rate advertisement. Some are
actually beneficial, such as being able to guarantee critical power supply on
a more granular level. But what about ending up with a handful of backbone
power providers with shady preferential practices and lackluster competitive
spirit?

Self-regulating devices that turn themselves off during peak usage (back off
packet sending...quiet broadcast radios...) seems extremely susceptible to bad
actors. Perhaps I underestimate how bad current power infrastructure
consistency is.

~~~
wavegeek
Yes what I am saying is that this is a big project that requires a huge and
coordinated investment.

------
jxramos
In daydreaming what this article was about I thought it was going to be a
transglobal power distribution where the folks receiving the sun were powering
the folks in the evening the other hemisphere away. Pretty interesting thought
but I'd doubt it would work uniformly. Probably a couple of pairs of partners
like US and Japan or Australia or something could benefit from such an
arrangement.

------
thatwebdude
I only see this route going if the power companies themselves are responsible
enough to make the transition to renewable energy (I'm not sure they are, at
least in any relatively quick timeframe). So if the case comes that fossil
fuels become more and more expensive, then and only then will they really make
an effort to transition to mostly renewable energy. And it'll happen at a slow
and crippling pace for all us tree-huggers out there.

So storage still makes a lot of sense, because if I want to do anything about
renewable energy, _I unfortunately have to do it myself_. Putting some sort of
solar system on my house will cost ME money; either outright, leased, or
through a home-improvement loan plan. Which is sad, but it is what it is (and
kudos to what the government HAS done to bring down these costs). Since it's
all on me to reduce my carbon footprint, that energy produced must be stored,
and these home battery systems (Tesla or not, there's about 2 other choices
though, it seems in my research with companies locally) are not all that
expensive considering the cost and installation of a solar array, especially
Tesla's pricier solar roof option. And that's giving you complete independence
from the electric company.

I talked to a rep about a solar solution and he understood my concern for
wanting to go "net zero" since it feels like locally, the power company is
devaluing what you put back into the sub-system more and more. He explained
that more and more people exploring their alternative energy solutions are
interested in these battery/storage systems for the exact same reasons. With a
minimum investment of about 30k or 40k for a whole-home solution, a lot of
people don't trust that their power fed back into the grid won't be devalued
over time (at least a rate higher than the natural decay of battery
technology).

~~~
maxerickson
I would expect power companies to be extremely responsive to costs.

Power company cooperatives run the largest storage systems on the planet
already, they built pumped storage because it was win-win for their cost
structures (they use them to more efficiently operate baseload generators).

They also do things like run around buying old appliances to get green credits
(a response to a negative cost imposed by regulators).

As far as selling power to the grid, the price should be fair for everyone,
not just a big reward for having the upfront capital to install solar.
Especially as the need to spur investment in solar tech goes away (because in
more and more areas it is already cost competitive and an easy choice).

~~~
thatwebdude
Yes, I'm definitely not blaming them, I can see somewhere on my bill where my
energy is coming from; but it's still mostly fossil (because obviously). They
are making great strides in alternative and renewable energy. I would think
their cost to go mostly with renewables are much more expensive to them than
my cost to go mostly renewable. They're going to move slow on this.

------
michaelt

      Now, new consumer products like Tesla’s grid-connected
      home battery [...] are becoming more popular
    

I'm sure some people have home batteries - but isn't this a rather niche
thing?

I mean, I'm sure it's nice for people in the boonies where mains power is
unreliable. Or if you're a survivalist/hippy that wants to be off-the-
grid/completely-renewable and doesn't mind paying a big premium for it.

But what would a home battery offer me that I can't get from the grid already?

~~~
CodeWriter23
The other thing it gets you is the full value of your rooftop solar
generation. Many localities have protectionist regulations where the local
utility doesn't have to pay for your electricity when your generation exceeds
your consumption. The City of Los Angeles, for example, has that regulation.
There's no "meter runs backward" after your bill for the grid drops to $0. And
your generation credits are calculated month-to-month, so if you generate
excess in the summer but not in the winter, you don't get credit for the
summertime surplus when you need it.

~~~
danans
> And your generation credits are calculated month-to-month, so if you
> generate excess in the summer but not in the winter, you don't get credit
> for the summertime surplus when you need it.

At least in the northern California PG&E service area, the credits are
calculated month to month but trued up once a year, so your summer surplus
generation does give you credit for your winter use. It's called net-metering
[1]

[1] [https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/solar-and-
vehicles/gre...](https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/solar-and-
vehicles/green-energy-incentives/solar-and-renewable-metering-and-billing/net-
energy-metering-program-tracking/understand-net-energy-metering.page)

~~~
CodeWriter23
That's pretty cool. But it varies from location to location.

LA sees any competition to their utilities to be an existential threat. For a
while, they forced me (and tens of thousands of others) to pay for trash pick
up from a multi-family dwelling even though our landlord had hired a private
service and had all of our city receptacles returned. They were recently
smacked down in court, I received a class action settlement notification a few
months back.

------
Razengan
How far in the "future" are we talking? Let's go all the way:

Let's assume an extraterrestrial colony being established on the Moon, or
Mars, or another planet.

Do you really want to spend time, effort and resources on building a
traditional power grid in a hostile, unstable environment (or a planet whose
natural terrain you want to affect as little as possible), or just provide
each facility its own independent power supply?

------
lithos
I hope this doesn't become an Every House thing. Right now the price
variations act somewhat as a subsidy for heavy industry.

Though I'm sure some analyst somewhere had similar words about air
conditioners.

------
smrtinsert
of course theres a clear winner - distributed power. the revolution will
absolutely be consumer driven.

------
Aron
Let's run a fat HVDC line coast to coast and pump that sunny goodness

------
gaius
So having failed to solve it, scientists say it never needed solving in the
first place? Well it makes a change from "in conclusion, we need more funding"
I guess...

~~~
epistasis
This sort of biased cynicism is really uncalled for.

From the science side, it is solved. What's needed is implementation from
industry to make it cost effective and have large enough scale.

This is already happening. Grid-scale lithium ion storage is cost effective
enough to replace California peaker plants that run on natural gas.

In Arizona, the latest paired solar + storage project is selling electricity
for $45/MWh.

And the cost curve is continuing to fall for lithium ion at a fast and steady
rate. The market for storage has developed so quickly that there hasn't even
been time to set up subsidies for storage, before it was economical to start
using it in practice. Some states are now implementing storage subsidies,
however, which will extend storage into more applications where it's not yet
economical, and give the industry a further kickstart.

The question will be if demand response will be cheaper than storage, and if
customers will put up with the hassle of demand response. As far as costs, not
using electricity is hard to beat, investing in reducing consumption for
identical work output, with efficiency measures, pay great dividends. Of
course, for the common home owner, convincing them to spend $500 now, in order
to save $1000 over the next 5 years, is a hard sell.

------
amelius
Also, (large) batteries are not fundamentally needed in cars. With the
upcoming self-driving technology, cars could feed themselves from power-lines
embedded in roads.

~~~
adrianN
What do power lines in the road have to do with self-driving? They could be
used for existing cars as well. They aren't used because they are ridiculously
expensive to build and maintain compared to normal roads.

~~~
ec109685
Perhaps the poster is envisioning a world where after drop off, the car drives
itself to a very high speed charging station off the beaten path.

~~~
Naritai
He may well be, in which case he's demonstrating that he doesn't understand
that those self-driving cars are only making money for their owner when the
meter is running, and so the owner will be interested in whatever model needs
as few recharges as possible.

