Thanks for sharing your thoughts, ideas and videos. Pretty good explanation of some of the hidden costs that go into power production. Looking forward to seeing more of your videos to see what other information you have to share. Never heard of the 10 to 1 ratio before as an operator but seems about right. Used to operate a 1200MW pump/storage and our reservoir was 12,000 MWH’s. An interesting subject to cover might be Demonstrated Maximum Net Capacity testing. Always an interesting exercise to perform, especially when the units get into the larger capacities. Some of the obstacles include is there room on the grid to accommodate the test. In North America a capacity test is for 4 hours. How fast can you start up a 1200MW generator. Actual vs Practical. In the plant I was familiar with the actual was less than 4 min. The fastest practical when not in an emergency situation was about an hour. Preferred was 2 hours to start and 2 hours to shut down. And capacity testing is always for 4 hours at full capacity in between the start and stop.
As an electrician in the power industry, what really impresses me is how fast battery/inverter systems can be brought online. It can be as little as milliseconds, and they can inject voltage and current into specific parts of the waveform to provide power quality and power factor support. Truly a game changer when it comes to peaker plants.
@@thelimitingfactor this is also why batteries or other fast dynamic ESS are very useful to support hydrostations during their power up(and down) ramp, so the ESS applies the delta power until the turbines spin up in a slow manner to decrease vibrations and tear => more maintenance.
Thank you, Jordan for so much thoughtful work you put out. I ran across some videos of Simon Michaux, whose main theory is that the current approach to green energy requires too much minerals that the earth simply doesn’t provide, to the extent of our knowledge. I wonder if you have looked into his analysis and what you think. There are a lot of ideas or talks that challenge the mainstream approaches to sustainability, many of them are simply stupid, but I wouldn’t say that about Michaux, at least without hearing other professionals opinions, like yourself. Thank you!
There's plenty of material there, and plenty of ways to become more efficient. That is, it's a failure of imagination on his part. For example - switching to a 48v low voltage system cuts the amount of copper wiring in vehicles by 75%. And the list could go on.
@@thelimitingfactorwell said, Jordan. I was skeptical about his theory, especially that it feeds into the anti-do-anything (like mining) environmentalist points of view. Like you said, the list goes on, insulating existing buildings will also save a lot of energy consumption thus reduce the amount of storage for the same duration in some areas.
It gets even worse when you look at *system* cost as your actual *goal* is to provide a certain amount of kWh from storage to all end users. If using a low efficiency storage method (like flow batteries) means you need more excess power from your primary sources to satisfy this desired utility. I.e. you have to build more solar and wind farms and also have a beefier grid to transmit this increased amount of power. So a storage method that might look cheap on paper (like flow batteries and, particularly, hydrogen) is actually very expensive when looking at your entire energy system and taking their knock-on effects into account.
Great Information as always @thelimitingfactor. We as a world population will have to transition to grid storage, my question is, timeline, segmentation of most growth(long/interday), , what are our bottlenecks here? Adoption has been relatively slow, when will the inflection point be + - couple years?
Glad to hear it! Adoption isn't the issue, it's scaling. And we've been scaling like gangbusters, it just takes a LONG time to build an industry to a scale that changes the fact of the world. Even after we hit scale later this decade that's impactful, it wil take 10-20 years to complete the conversion because all the old stuff has to be replaced.
Now that's an excellent Video lesson in duration timing modulation cause-effect everyone needs to know how to use when investing their own time and money.
As an ex-grid engineer I can say this was a very good explanation, I could have never thought of this angle. For the purpose of the battery, is it fair to say a "2h duration" can also be called a 0.5C max discharge, while a "4h duration" could be called 0.25C? For sure grid storage jargon may be more akin to "duration" rather than "C-rating", but I need to tie the two worlds somehow.
This is FANTASTIC information for investors! This is a necessary framework for thinking about how new grid storage technologies will fit into the market.
Great video ! I'm an energy storage engineer in China who recently switched job to market/stock analysis focusing on the same industry. Energy storage is an extremely hot topic in Chinese market and there are a lot happening in recent years. Currently there are debates on which techonology is the most suitbable for long duration energy storage (LDES). The candidates in the industry are lithium iron, lead acid, flow battery, and gravity energy storage. There are dozens of start-ups betting on each technology and the market is going crazy. Looking forward to your follow-up videos on this topic and your opion on the most suitable technology for LDES.
Sounds like in general, solar+wind and li-ion+pumped hydro are the answer for our future grid due to the normal demand peaks in the evenings when solar drops off and overnight hours when there is no solar. In addition to smaller amounts of nuclear perhaps 25% for unlimited duration needs and base load supply.
Einsteinian advice is to make an explanation simple, but not too simple, so we understand Relativistic Physics now don't we? Euler's pure-math e-Pi-i elaboration by symbolic design is as simple a picture as possible to make of making Relativistic => relative-timing ratio-rates Perspective time-timing narrative by default, explanation.., otherwise you just look at Jordan's Limiting Factor and understand what you can by flash-fractal In-form-ation substantiation holography relative-timing reciprocation-recirculation potential positioning integration re-cognition, somewhat probabilisticly.
When adding storage to a grid, cost per each kwhr time shifted is the key parameter. (Capital Cost) / (lifetime kwhr cycles) = cost/kwhr. For example . If your battery costs $100/kwhr and you cycle it daily over an assumed 10 yr lifetime or ~3000 times, each stored kwhr costs $0.03 (excluding interest costs, charging costs, round-trip efficiency)). If one assumes a 5% interest cost ($5/300=~$0.014) one must add ~$0.044 to the cost of the charging kwhr then divide by the round trip efficiency to determine the cost of the time shifted kwhr.
Yes! Cost per kWhr CYCLE is what really matters. A more expensive battery with higher cycle life can be cheaper over the entire cycle life. Increased replacement frequency also mean more downtime and costs overall, so that needs to be factored into the overall cost of the system. Cheaper equipment does not always mean lower cost overall.
Yeah, but that's not what the video was about. It was about how duration is assessed. I'll get into that later in the series. But even cost/kwh/cycle is simplistic
@@cah95046 High cost per kWhr cycle batteries are used all the time for specific needs, such as in space, telecommunications, life safety and medical equipment, fire alarm and control equipment, remote systems where replacement is difficult, and extreme environments, to name a few. It is often these special needs that drive innovations that later become part of our daily life after ways are found to lower cost and manufacture at scale. Like any purchasing and engineering decision, it is a matter of balancing cost vs value with the requirements for the purpose.
My thoughts before watching the video: This is an important topic. The capital costs for seasonal storage are orders of magnitude more expensive than intermittency balancing since you only get one cycle per year to ammortize the cost instead of hundreds or thousands. Energy storage is fundamentally a tradeoff between capacity costs and efficiency losses, and technologies that are good at one are generally VERY bad at the other.
Oh wow that's unfortunate. There is so much to say about adding flexibility to the grid with storage. I was really looking forward to a possible EOS Energy video. Might be the algorithm? Lots of people looking for feasible investment ideas when to comes to batteries, and you're saying it's one of the more promising?@@thelimitingfactor
Nice summary, but the insights and the thumbnail clash a bit. There really was nothing about "season" energy shifting. Day-to-night and weekday-to-weekday are covered by 2 to 100 hours duration, but "season" is another thing altogether. (Example, shift excess Summer / Fall solar power to Winter.) Since you have such clarity and credibility, it would be good to hear your thoughts about means to economically shift power by weeks or months. Thanks.
@@thelimitingfactor Didn't mean to be snippy! Just expressing an interest in having a reliable analysis of longer-time load shift capability. Maybe that will be "Part 2" or something else in the future.
The "C" value used for e.g. LFP batteries is actually power/energy, so a lower C value means the battery is typically less expensive for a given amount of energy storage. Furthermore charging a battery at 0.5C max may result in a longer battery life than if used at 1C max, so there may be tradeoffs there. Is there any reason why you (or industry) use energy/power (e.g. 1/C or minimum hours) instead of power/energy? Bigger numbers sound good, but they really mean the system is not good in the power delivery department.
Interesting, as usual, Jordan. I'm sure I don't entirely understand what you mean by "duration" and what it means to my home power ideas. For example, I'm running some common use tests with a new battery. The 'storage life' of my tiny recreational LiFePO4 battery seems to be about a week. I charged it up, disconnected it from everything, and then watched the electricity stored in it decay to zero over the next seven days. What's the term of reference for that period of time on that battery? As far as I can tell, there is no draw, the battery just won't retain electricity for significant time periods. Basically, it's an electricity bucket. I can fill it up, carry it somewhere the same day, use it all, then go home and repeat the cycle tomorrow. How does this match other folks' experience? Are these LiFePO4 batteries specifically intended to be charged and discharged daily? If so, what would you recommend I look at for a battery that keeps most of its charge intact for a period of a month or more? Is there such a chemistry? Building my own mini-reservoir and mini-turbogenerator is . . . not entirely out of the question. Living in western Washington as I do, collecting LOTS of rain in winter is a viable option. In my case, a few wind turbine designs and some solar panels will probably come first.
Temporal is time. Like, calendar life Yes, because water doesn't degrade. We're still drinking dinosaur pee. And, as for supercaps, there's no reaction going on, so nothing to degrade from just sitting there (on human timeframes) Batteries do disintegrate just sitting there.
I love your graphics, and how you can make a very complicated system easy to understand! I was always thinking that pumped hydroelectric power is the only way to store over 500 MWh of power for a long duration. Yet the Tesla power packs seem to be bringing down that overall cost now.
Does pumped hydro include the cost of building a water tank? If not, then I assume pumped hydro is only viable in some areas, and would be prohibitively expensive elsewhere? Presumably its regional nature would also have the added cost of beefing up the grid between areas of supply and demand?
@@thelimitingfactor I feel stupid, but wouldn't two holes of equal volume be needed? One very shallow and the other very deep. Then pumping from the deep to shallow would store energy, and from shallow to deep would retrieve that energy. How can it work with a single reservoir? Also they may need a river or stream feed to compensate for evaporation, unless they are covered, but using the river itself to generate power could be very limiting unless it is very high flow, which again constrains the use case.
In Northern climates, interseasonal storage is going to be a huge issue in the future (winter = no sun, high energy demand), it would be nice to see ultra-long discharge technologies included in such an analysis, in particular, where does hydrogen fit into the interseasonal storage picture.
Tony Seba (RethinkX) says that this is not so. There is a balance between renewable generation and storage that works well even for locations within the Arctic circle!
not an expert but thought I'd read that NAmerica has a lot of hydro-electricity - and last I looked at the count of hydrogen cars I'd seen it was about ... 1.
While I understand that you are simplifying in order to provide educational material, you left out the most critical "limiting factor:" The COST PER UNIT CYCLE of the energy storage system, such as cost per kWhr CYCLE. This cycle cost is very closely tied to the round trip efficiency, which is very low for hydrogen (around 16% in real world conditions), and very high (90%+) for lithium batteries, with pumped hydro a close second (80%). The upfront cost for both the power and energy in a storage system must be spread out over the expected cycle life in order to provide useful information for overall cost for the power and energy. A cheaper upfront cost for a low cycle system can mean much higher costs per kWhr than a system that costs double, but has twice the number of cycles, or more. This is because you also need to factor in the downtime and labor of replacing equipment more frequently.
Jordan, thanks for the video. One challenge I’m curious if you’re going to address is the problem with renewables. Renewables are highly variable, down to the millisecond in terms of their effect on the grid. Because the wind blowing can be non-uniform, and the cloud cover the same, it’s hard to predict at scale where an ISO operator for example should send power in a dynamic way. Here in CA lacking millisecond/second response grid scale storage (supercapicitors?) we have to install an equivalent amount of natural gas oeaker plants for every megawatt of solar or wind deployed. Because oeaker plants are cheap from a capex perspective but expensive on opex, the net result is as solar is deployed energy gets dirtier and more expensive. I’ve seen here in ca and read about Germany that our cost of energy is growing much faster than inflation or demand. Installing more solar/wind makes the problem worse not better, and I’m concerned with durations of 2-4hrs that grid scale battery storage is not going to be an effective solution. Long story short, I hope one of the videos in this series gets into this aspect of the economics. Sure solar/wind + grid scale storage is cheaper on paper, but in my backyard I’ve seen power costs 4x in 2 decades. That’s totally unsustainable. And while I have you. Elon keeps saying we’re going to run out of power in a couple years. I agree with him. Current ev fleet is 1% if it continues to grow at 50% cagr then it will hit 3.5% very soon. At 3.5% we don’t have the power infrastructure to take the increased demand of EVs because that power is currently delivered via oil, which is a separate system. So we’ll have power “stock outs” do to changing mix demand. Not unlike toilet paper shortages as consumption changed from a mix of commercial and tesidential to primarily residential during covid, leaving an entire supply chain out. Tbh understanding the local micro economics of this so I can look on caliso and predict when my county will lose power would be most welcome. Thx, -M
Someone asked me “I was told that 1 electric car used more power than 25 home refrigerators, is that true?” So if a refrigerator used about 350 watts per hour, then every day it would use about 10 hours or 3.5 KW. So 25 refrigerators is about 75 KW to 87.5 KW. A Tesla can drive 100 miles and use 25 KW of power, Most people do not drive 100 miles per day (36,500 miles a year) but less than ½ that many miles. So 12 KW per day, or about what 3-4 refrigerators will use. My heat pump is 4 KW per hour. So it can run 0 hours in the spring and fall, and 4-5 hours per day in the winter and about the same time on a really hot day. So that can be 0 KW to 20 KW per day. Most of that time in the summer will be during the peak power needs between noon and 9 pm. Winter is between 9 pm and 6 am, as I get lower cost power at night, and tend to wait and use it more during the low cost hours. My car charging is normally done only at my lower night time rates after 9 pm, before 7 am. Just when the grid has plenty of excess power generation, and that is why the grid can take on a lot more cars without being overloaded. They can charge at night, when the grid has plenty of excess generation capacity. So total demand to charge 1 car is much less than my heat pump, and less than if I owned 3 refrigerators. And nobody is saying that the grid will crash if you install a window A/C or central A/C unit. The grid will just get larger capacity as more people build more homes.
Just can’t seem to access that free pdf version. Went to your link and that works but no where to download a pdf. Had an ebook button but my ebook provider, Apple, can’t find it. Is there somewhere else it is downloadable?
I understand that using 5 2hr units simultaneously would be cost inefficient. But couldn't you just use them one after the other so each of them only operates for 2hr at a time?
I don't understand. Generally, there's a specific time period where the power must be used to run profitably. You can't pick when and how much power to give. It depends on when the market needs it and what technology you have to deliver it. You pick a technology for the specific situation. And as I explained in the video, certain technologies are better for certain situations.
@@saff226 Yes, but under the assumption that 5 2hr units are the same price as 1 10hr unit, the return on investment would still be the same. Are the larger units normally cheaper?
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts, ideas and videos. Pretty good explanation of some of the hidden costs that go into power production. Looking forward to seeing more of your videos to see what other information you have to share. Never heard of the 10 to 1 ratio before as an operator but seems about right. Used to operate a 1200MW pump/storage and our reservoir was 12,000 MWH’s. An interesting subject to cover might be Demonstrated Maximum Net Capacity testing. Always an interesting exercise to perform, especially when the units get into the larger capacities. Some of the obstacles include is there room on the grid to accommodate the test. In North America a capacity test is for 4 hours. How fast can you start up a 1200MW generator. Actual vs Practical. In the plant I was familiar with the actual was less than 4 min. The fastest practical when not in an emergency situation was about an hour. Preferred was 2 hours to start and 2 hours to shut down. And capacity testing is always for 4 hours at full capacity in between the start and stop.
Great information thanks!
As an electrician in the power industry, what really impresses me is how fast battery/inverter systems can be brought online. It can be as little as milliseconds, and they can inject voltage and current into specific parts of the waveform to provide power quality and power factor support. Truly a game changer when it comes to peaker plants.
@@thelimitingfactor this is also why batteries or other fast dynamic ESS are very useful to support hydrostations during their power up(and down) ramp, so the ESS applies the delta power until the turbines spin up in a slow manner to decrease vibrations and tear => more maintenance.
The signal-to-noise ratio in your videos is absolutely insane, thanks Jordan for yet another banger
🤜🤛🤠
Glad you're going for sponsors, more $ = more content and I do love your subject matter.
Wow! I understand something I didn't understand before. Professional and well done. Thank You!
Glad to hear it, thanks Joseph!
Solid video informative and entertaining.
Thank you, Jordan for so much thoughtful work you put out.
I ran across some videos of Simon Michaux, whose main theory is that the current approach to green energy requires too much minerals that the earth simply doesn’t provide, to the extent of our knowledge. I wonder if you have looked into his analysis and what you think. There are a lot of ideas or talks that challenge the mainstream approaches to sustainability, many of them are simply stupid, but I wouldn’t say that about Michaux, at least without hearing other professionals opinions, like yourself. Thank you!
There's plenty of material there, and plenty of ways to become more efficient.
That is, it's a failure of imagination on his part.
For example - switching to a 48v low voltage system cuts the amount of copper wiring in vehicles by 75%.
And the list could go on.
@@thelimitingfactorwell said, Jordan. I was skeptical about his theory, especially that it feeds into the anti-do-anything (like mining) environmentalist points of view. Like you said, the list goes on, insulating existing buildings will also save a lot of energy consumption thus reduce the amount of storage for the same duration in some areas.
Take a look at long duration Zinc batteries by EOS is 90% plus locally sourced and recyclable. They seem to be the ticket. @@loctobert9421
Thanks! I really appreciate these deep dives that get into the weeds of how these things work.
Just started and already know it will be a great video!
It makes me even hapier when there is a "Part 1" in title 😂
My thought exactly!!!!
The fact that you got another expert to review your video shows your level to detail and care, that's why people like you bud!🙌
I do care 😊 Too much in fact probably, lol
Thank you for these long form essay videos
I learn so much just listening in the background as I get simple task done
It gets even worse when you look at *system* cost as your actual *goal* is to provide a certain amount of kWh from storage to all end users.
If using a low efficiency storage method (like flow batteries) means you need more excess power from your primary sources to satisfy this desired utility.
I.e. you have to build more solar and wind farms and also have a beefier grid to transmit this increased amount of power.
So a storage method that might look cheap on paper (like flow batteries and, particularly, hydrogen) is actually very expensive when looking at your entire energy system and taking their knock-on effects into account.
Amen!
Wonderful stuff. Thank you very much..
Great Information as always @thelimitingfactor. We as a world population will have to transition to grid storage, my question is, timeline, segmentation of most growth(long/interday), , what are our bottlenecks here? Adoption has been relatively slow, when will the inflection point be + - couple years?
Glad to hear it!
Adoption isn't the issue, it's scaling. And we've been scaling like gangbusters, it just takes a LONG time to build an industry to a scale that changes the fact of the world.
Even after we hit scale later this decade that's impactful, it wil take 10-20 years to complete the conversion because all the old stuff has to be replaced.
Now that's an excellent Video lesson in duration timing modulation cause-effect everyone needs to know how to use when investing their own time and money.
As an ex-grid engineer I can say this was a very good explanation, I could have never thought of this angle. For the purpose of the battery, is it fair to say a "2h duration" can also be called a 0.5C max discharge, while a "4h duration" could be called 0.25C? For sure grid storage jargon may be more akin to "duration" rather than "C-rating", but I need to tie the two worlds somehow.
Yes! A good way to put it!
This is FANTASTIC information for investors! This is a necessary framework for thinking about how new grid storage technologies will fit into the market.
Glad it was useful!
Great video ! I'm an energy storage engineer in China who recently switched job to market/stock analysis focusing on the same industry. Energy storage is an extremely hot topic in Chinese market and there are a lot happening in recent years. Currently there are debates on which techonology is the most suitbable for long duration energy storage (LDES). The candidates in the industry are lithium iron, lead acid, flow battery, and gravity energy storage. There are dozens of start-ups betting on each technology and the market is going crazy. Looking forward to your follow-up videos on this topic and your opion on the most suitable technology for LDES.
🙌🏼🤠
THX JORDAN 🤗 off to good start
Great video Jordan. You're an absolute beast
lol, thanks man
Sounds like in general, solar+wind and li-ion+pumped hydro are the answer for our future grid due to the normal demand peaks in the evenings when solar drops off and overnight hours when there is no solar. In addition to smaller amounts of nuclear perhaps 25% for unlimited duration needs and base load supply.
I hope to explore this more further as I get into the series
Einsteinian advice is to make an explanation simple, but not too simple, so we understand Relativistic Physics now don't we?
Euler's pure-math e-Pi-i elaboration by symbolic design is as simple a picture as possible to make of making Relativistic => relative-timing ratio-rates Perspective time-timing narrative by default, explanation.., otherwise you just look at Jordan's Limiting Factor and understand what you can by flash-fractal In-form-ation substantiation holography relative-timing reciprocation-recirculation potential positioning integration re-cognition, somewhat probabilisticly.
Thank you!
When adding storage to a grid, cost per each kwhr time shifted is the key parameter. (Capital Cost) / (lifetime kwhr cycles) = cost/kwhr. For example . If your battery costs $100/kwhr and you cycle it daily over an assumed 10 yr lifetime or ~3000 times, each stored kwhr costs $0.03 (excluding interest costs, charging costs, round-trip efficiency)). If one assumes a 5% interest cost ($5/300=~$0.014) one must add ~$0.044 to the cost of the charging kwhr then divide by the round trip efficiency to determine the cost of the time shifted kwhr.
Yes! Cost per kWhr CYCLE is what really matters. A more expensive battery with higher cycle life can be cheaper over the entire cycle life. Increased replacement frequency also mean more downtime and costs overall, so that needs to be factored into the overall cost of the system. Cheaper equipment does not always mean lower cost overall.
Yeah, but that's not what the video was about. It was about how duration is assessed. I'll get into that later in the series.
But even cost/kwh/cycle is simplistic
It may be simplistic but it's the fundamental issue. If a storage technology has a high cost/kwhr/cycle it's not going to be used.
@@cah95046 High cost per kWhr cycle batteries are used all the time for specific needs, such as in space, telecommunications, life safety and medical equipment, fire alarm and control equipment, remote systems where replacement is difficult, and extreme environments, to name a few.
It is often these special needs that drive innovations that later become part of our daily life after ways are found to lower cost and manufacture at scale.
Like any purchasing and engineering decision, it is a matter of balancing cost vs value with the requirements for the purpose.
You should have put a warning on the logorithmic scales :)
Some of the best info on YT!
Response time is also a factor.
amen
So frustrating that the algorythm never notifies me of your videos even tho im subscribed.
Hmmmm. Thanks for letting me know!
My thoughts before watching the video:
This is an important topic. The capital costs for seasonal storage are orders of magnitude more expensive than intermittency balancing since you only get one cycle per year to ammortize the cost instead of hundreds or thousands.
Energy storage is fundamentally a tradeoff between capacity costs and efficiency losses, and technologies that are good at one are generally VERY bad at the other.
Nice! Thanks for your thoughts!
can you please do deep dive on EOSE?
I'd like to, but people don't seem that interested in grid storage. This video kind of bombed.
But! We'll see how the other videos in the series go.
Oh wow that's unfortunate. There is so much to say about adding flexibility to the grid with storage. I was really looking forward to a possible EOS Energy video. Might be the algorithm? Lots of people looking for feasible investment ideas when to comes to batteries, and you're saying it's one of the more promising?@@thelimitingfactor
Please create a playlist or cross reference videos
Quality quality quality
I'm always amazed at the things i learn here ❤❤
😊
I do not understand this. Instead of watching a movie. I again have to watch your channel. 🤣
😂
Nice summary, but the insights and the thumbnail clash a bit. There really was nothing about "season" energy shifting. Day-to-night and weekday-to-weekday are covered by 2 to 100 hours duration, but "season" is another thing altogether. (Example, shift excess Summer / Fall solar power to Winter.) Since you have such clarity and credibility, it would be good to hear your thoughts about means to economically shift power by weeks or months. Thanks.
Thanks.
Not sure what to say. There's a title, and also a description, and an introduction.
And, duration can cover any timeframe
@@thelimitingfactor Didn't mean to be snippy! Just expressing an interest in having a reliable analysis of longer-time load shift capability. Maybe that will be "Part 2" or something else in the future.
The "C" value used for e.g. LFP batteries is actually power/energy, so a lower C value means the battery is typically less expensive for a given amount of energy storage. Furthermore charging a battery at 0.5C max may result in a longer battery life than if used at 1C max, so there may be tradeoffs there.
Is there any reason why you (or industry) use energy/power (e.g. 1/C or minimum hours) instead of power/energy? Bigger numbers sound good, but they really mean the system is not good in the power delivery department.
Interesting, as usual, Jordan. I'm sure I don't entirely understand what you mean by "duration" and what it means to my home power ideas.
For example, I'm running some common use tests with a new battery. The 'storage life' of my tiny recreational LiFePO4 battery seems to be about a week. I charged it up, disconnected it from everything, and then watched the electricity stored in it decay to zero over the next seven days. What's the term of reference for that period of time on that battery? As far as I can tell, there is no draw, the battery just won't retain electricity for significant time periods. Basically, it's an electricity bucket. I can fill it up, carry it somewhere the same day, use it all, then go home and repeat the cycle tomorrow.
How does this match other folks' experience? Are these LiFePO4 batteries specifically intended to be charged and discharged daily?
If so, what would you recommend I look at for a battery that keeps most of its charge intact for a period of a month or more? Is there such a chemistry?
Building my own mini-reservoir and mini-turbogenerator is . . . not entirely out of the question. Living in western Washington as I do, collecting LOTS of rain in winter is a viable option. In my case, a few wind turbine designs and some solar panels will probably come first.
it gets complex when you looks at systems like Stiegsdal system with lower round trip efficiense (40%) but also low capex.
Thanks!
Thanks for the support James!
Super informative video please include how the duck curve is affected by storage in the future videos and the economics associated with it
7:00 What is temporal degradation? Loss of capacity?
Are hydro & supercapacitors really at 0%/y?
Temporal is time. Like, calendar life
Yes, because water doesn't degrade. We're still drinking dinosaur pee.
And, as for supercaps, there's no reaction going on, so nothing to degrade from just sitting there (on human timeframes)
Batteries do disintegrate just sitting there.
As usual excellent video Jordan, complex subject that’s broken down with your usual aplomb!
Glad to hear it 😀
❤
Also energy efficiency is important. Hydrogen about 50%, pumped hydro 75%; batteries >90%
Amen!
I love your graphics, and how you can make a very complicated system easy to understand! I was always thinking that pumped hydroelectric power is the only way to store over 500 MWh of power for a long duration. Yet the Tesla power packs seem to be bringing down that overall cost now.
😊 Glad to hear it!
Oh, my god, 18 minutes just passed by?! It feels like I could listen to these types of videos hours on end.
😊
1st!
Something went wrong with the audio. Is this "AI" denoising at work?
Not sure what you mean. First I've heard of this
Looking forward to part 2
Hi Jordan, what happened with the sequels to this (great) video?
I have two coming in the next few months. 😉
Does pumped hydro include the cost of building a water tank? If not, then I assume pumped hydro is only viable in some areas, and would be prohibitively expensive elsewhere? Presumably its regional nature would also have the added cost of beefing up the grid between areas of supply and demand?
Usually they just dig out or utilize a reservoir. Yes, the cost includes that. That's why the energy side is so cheap - just dig a hole
@@thelimitingfactor I feel stupid, but wouldn't two holes of equal volume be needed? One very shallow and the other very deep. Then pumping from the deep to shallow would store energy, and from shallow to deep would retrieve that energy. How can it work with a single reservoir? Also they may need a river or stream feed to compensate for evaporation, unless they are covered, but using the river itself to generate power could be very limiting unless it is very high flow, which again constrains the use case.
Loved this, very helpful and interesting.
Glad you enjoyed it!
In Northern climates, interseasonal storage is going to be a huge issue in the future (winter = no sun, high energy demand), it would be nice to see ultra-long discharge technologies included in such an analysis, in particular, where does hydrogen fit into the interseasonal storage picture.
Tony Seba (RethinkX) says that this is not so. There is a balance between renewable generation and storage that works well even for locations within the Arctic circle!
not an expert but thought I'd read that NAmerica has a lot of hydro-electricity - and last I looked at the count of hydrogen cars I'd seen it was about ... 1.
While I understand that you are simplifying in order to provide educational material, you left out the most critical "limiting factor:" The COST PER UNIT CYCLE of the energy storage system, such as cost per kWhr CYCLE. This cycle cost is very closely tied to the round trip efficiency, which is very low for hydrogen (around 16% in real world conditions), and very high (90%+) for lithium batteries, with pumped hydro a close second (80%).
The upfront cost for both the power and energy in a storage system must be spread out over the expected cycle life in order to provide useful information for overall cost for the power and energy. A cheaper upfront cost for a low cycle system can mean much higher costs per kWhr than a system that costs double, but has twice the number of cycles, or more. This is because you also need to factor in the downtime and labor of replacing equipment more frequently.
I didn't cover it because that wasn't what the video was about.
I'll cover that later in the series.
Regardless, even cost/kwh/cycle is simplistic
Please do an update video on why TSLA has been unable to produce the 500 miles on the cybertruck that they'd hoped for?!
I did X posts on this.
It was a design decision.
They could have done it, but they decided not to to increase margins and stretch battery supply IMO
@@thelimitingfactor wow good to know thank-you. Thanks for the reply too!
Sure thing!
Jordan, thanks for the video.
One challenge I’m curious if you’re going to address is the problem with renewables.
Renewables are highly variable, down to the millisecond in terms of their effect on the grid. Because the wind blowing can be non-uniform, and the cloud cover the same, it’s hard to predict at scale where an ISO operator for example should send power in a dynamic way. Here in CA lacking millisecond/second response grid scale storage (supercapicitors?) we have to install an equivalent amount of natural gas oeaker plants for every megawatt of solar or wind deployed. Because oeaker plants are cheap from a capex perspective but expensive on opex, the net result is as solar is deployed energy gets dirtier and more expensive. I’ve seen here in ca and read about Germany that our cost of energy is growing much faster than inflation or demand. Installing more solar/wind makes the problem worse not better, and I’m concerned with durations of 2-4hrs that grid scale battery storage is not going to be an effective solution.
Long story short, I hope one of the videos in this series gets into this aspect of the economics.
Sure solar/wind + grid scale storage is cheaper on paper, but in my backyard I’ve seen power costs 4x in 2 decades.
That’s totally unsustainable.
And while I have you. Elon keeps saying we’re going to run out of power in a couple years. I agree with him. Current ev fleet is 1% if it continues to grow at 50% cagr then it will hit 3.5% very soon. At 3.5% we don’t have the power infrastructure to take the increased demand of EVs because that power is currently delivered via oil, which is a separate system. So we’ll have power “stock outs” do to changing mix demand. Not unlike toilet paper shortages as consumption changed from a mix of commercial and tesidential to primarily residential during covid, leaving an entire supply chain out.
Tbh understanding the local micro economics of this so I can look on caliso and predict when my county will lose power would be most welcome.
Thx, -M
Someone asked me “I was told that 1 electric car used more power than 25 home refrigerators, is that true?”
So if a refrigerator used about 350 watts per hour, then every day it would use about 10 hours or 3.5 KW. So 25 refrigerators is about 75 KW to 87.5 KW.
A Tesla can drive 100 miles and use 25 KW of power, Most people do not drive 100 miles per day (36,500 miles a year) but less than ½ that many miles. So 12 KW per day, or about what 3-4 refrigerators will use.
My heat pump is 4 KW per hour. So it can run 0 hours in the spring and fall, and 4-5 hours per day in the winter and about the same time on a really hot day. So that can be 0 KW to 20 KW per day. Most of that time in the summer will be during the peak power needs between noon and 9 pm. Winter is between 9 pm and 6 am, as I get lower cost power at night, and tend to wait and use it more during the low cost hours.
My car charging is normally done only at my lower night time rates after 9 pm, before 7 am. Just when the grid has plenty of excess power generation, and that is why the grid can take on a lot more cars without being overloaded. They can charge at night, when the grid has plenty of excess generation capacity.
So total demand to charge 1 car is much less than my heat pump, and less than if I owned 3 refrigerators. And nobody is saying that the grid will crash if you install a window A/C or central A/C unit. The grid will just get larger capacity as more people build more homes.
Just can’t seem to access that free pdf version. Went to your link and that works but no where to download a pdf. Had an ebook button but my ebook provider, Apple, can’t find it. Is there somewhere else it is downloadable?
I dont' know what to tell you. I just opened it. You hover over the Open Access text and a PDF option comes up.
ty
energy density pumped hydro 1 Wh/m3 ???
Yes
I understand that using 5 2hr units simultaneously would be cost inefficient. But couldn't you just use them one after the other so each of them only operates for 2hr at a time?
I don't understand.
Generally, there's a specific time period where the power must be used to run profitably.
You can't pick when and how much power to give. It depends on when the market needs it and what technology you have to deliver it.
You pick a technology for the specific situation.
And as I explained in the video, certain technologies are better for certain situations.
You can but it's still inefficient because you're paying for 4 inverters you don't need.
@@saff226 Yes, but under the assumption that 5 2hr units are the same price as 1 10hr unit, the return on investment would still be the same. Are the larger units normally cheaper?
@@baicheo no a 10h would be way cheaper than 5 x 2h