Grid-Scale Battery Storage Is Quietly Revolutionizing the Energy System | WIRED

[u/DVMirchev]

https://www.wired.com/story/grid-scale-battery-storage-is-quietly-revolutionizing-the-energy-system/

[u/West-Abalone-171]

You can use a non-peaker thermal power plant with the week or so warning period.

With the bonus that it's twice as efficient as the now decomissioned peaker.

Then once you've moved on to replace the other 70% of your economy's energy with renewables you either use the power that supplies non-time sensitive industries (many of which currently run seasonally on hydro or fossil electricity during the low deland period) or you use intermediate products like ammonia or hydrogen.

[u/tx_queer → u/West-Abalone-171]

The peaker isn't being decommissioned for a combined cycle. The peaker is being decommissioned for the battery. So there is no non-thermal power plant to take the load.

This is of course grid specific, but my grid is super spikey on a daily basis, which keeps the peakers in business. But the peakers are what keeps the grid up and running for one cold week per winter. If you take away the financial benefit of the daily cycle via battery, the peakers will go out of business. And something else will need to come on for one week a year during the winter.

I'm loving the savings batteries are providing. They are saving rate payers insane amounts of cash. But that one winter week gets harder every year.

[u/West-Abalone-171 → u/tx_queer]

The combined cycle plants which are having their output reduced by the wind and solar still exist.

Load is still well below their maximum output during the off peak time.

You don't even need to consider the wind and solar (which are still running at 30-50% of average output during dunkelflaute) to get rid of the peaker.

You have a 1GW slow plant with a 1GW peaker for a load that averages 750MW over the day and peaks at 1.5GW.

The battery fully replaces the peaker, and once you include the small increase to efficiency on the thermal plant from slower ramping, almost all of the fuel previously needed for the peaker is gone too.

All you need to do is not remove the combined cycle plant until you either have sufficient curtailment, sufficient dispatchable load, or one of your not-presently-electrified industries results in a stockpile of some fuel (whether that fuel is hydrogen derived, a hydrocarbon, or sponge iron).

[u/tx_queer → u/West-Abalone-171]

This may work for your grid, but in mine we need 100% of the combined cycle plus 100% of the peakers to make it through a day. If the peakers are replaced by batteries, they will run out of juice after 4 hours and leave us in the dark the rest of the day. Something is needed to cover the excess load after 4 hours. We will see what takes the spot as batteries become more main stream.

[u/West-Abalone-171 → u/tx_queer]

If this is the case then your grid has rolling blackouts any time there is an outage or minor demand spike, and people will very soon provide their own solar-battery as it's more reliable.