Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

[jpak]

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/07/giant-batteries-and-cheap-solar-power-are-shoving-fossil-fuels-grid

This month, officials in Los Angeles, California, are expected to approve a deal that would make solar power cheaper than ever while also addressing its chief flaw: It works only when the sun shines. The deal calls for a huge solar farm backed up by one of the world's largest batteries. It would provide 7% of the city's electricity beginning in 2023 at a cost of 1.997 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) for the solar power and 1.3 cents per kWh for the battery. That's cheaper than any power generated with fossil fuel.

"Goodnight #naturalgas, goodnight #coal, goodnight #nuclear," Mark Jacobson, an atmospheric scientist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, tweeted after news of the deal surfaced late last month. "Because of growing economies of scale, prices for renewables and batteries keep coming down," adds Jacobson, who has advised countries around the world on how to shift to 100% renewable electricity. As if on cue, last week a major U.S. coal company—West Virginia–based Revelation Energy LLC—filed for bankruptcy, the second in as many weeks.

The new solar plus storage effort will be built in Kern County in California by 8minute Solar Energy. The project is expected to create a 400-megawatt solar array, generating roughly 876,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity annually, enough to power more than 65,000 homes during daylight hours. Its 800-MWh battery will store electricity for after the sun sets, reducing the need for natural gas–fired generators.

Precipitous price declines have already driven a shift toward renewables backed by battery storage. In March, an analysis of more than 7000 global storage projects by Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported that the cost of utility-scale lithium-ion batteries had fallen by 76% since 2012, and by 35% in just the past 18 months, to $187 per MWh. Another market watch firm, Navigant, predicts a further halving by 2030, to a price well below what 8minute has committed to.

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[iluvtennis]

1. Very nice - renewable energy like solar and battery storage are the future. nt

[johnnyfins]

2. but COAL will MAGA

[iluvtennis]

3. LOL...cuz trump is gonna put coal back in the mines. nt

[RainCaster]

6. don't forget- that's CLEAN coal

yeah...

[lunatica]

4. This is excellent news for two reasons

The energy is renewable and non toxic to the planet and companies and entrepreneurs are moving right along on their own, in spite of trump’s best efforts.

[not fooled]

5. OK, this is good

but it would be better to also promote rooftop solar. However, I guess the big utilities have too much at stake to allow promotion of something that weakens their bottom line. Also, I hate seeing large areas of desert get scraped to put in these massive solar farms. If there were robust rooftop solar the need to destroy natural areas would be considerably diminished.

[Calculating]

7. The elephant in the room is the lithium and rare earth materials needed for the batteries

And what we do when the lithium batteries go bad after a few thousand charge cycles. IMO battery storage on a power grid level is impractical at best, and an epic fail at worst.

[Red Pest]

8. Liquid metal batteries are a much less expensive solution to lithium & rare earth batteries

Here is a link to an article describing work by Prof. Donald Sadoway of MIT - http://news.mit.edu/2018/metal-mesh-membrane-rechargeable-batteries-renewable-energy-0122. I have heard presentations about this technology that point out that it is excellent for large scale storage of electricity generated by solar or wind installations. These batteries are not particularly suited for small-medium scale uses such as cars & trucks or smaller.

[Finishline42]

10. I don't think it works that way

I bought a Prius from a guy that rebuilds them, over 400 last I heard 3 years ago. He sells rebuilt main batteries for less than $1k. He replaces that bad cells and its back working again. I would imagine that most of these work the same way.

The other thing about the Prius - Toyota keeps the battery between 85% and 50% charged. That leads me to believe that makes them last longer - don't over charge them and don't drain them too much.

But what batteries do better than almost anything is the virtual instantaneous response time to spikes.

The other thing is that the more we use batteries the more $$$ are available for R&D to find a better way to store energy.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. I got solar panels installed on my roof last month.

I get to sell the excess back to the local power company. Hooray! It won't be a lot of money to me, but other than in a really overcast month, I should at the very least break even on electricity. I'm looking forward to the first month's bill with the solar panels operational. And then the first full month, as they were turned on July 7th.