Why the UK's Power Grid is Sidelining Clean-Energy Battery Storage (ft.com) 20
The administrators of Great Britain's power grid admit that it's often unable to use energy-storage batteries due to old computer systems and an old network with "not enough cables", according to the Financial Times — though the system operator says they're making progress after upgrading their system last December:
The company has plans to lower the rate at which batteries are sidelined to single figures by early next year [said Craig Dyke, from National Grid's electricity system operator], calling current levels "higher than where we want them to be". Dyke's comments came in response to a letter from four leading battery storage groups which said National Grid's "electricity system operator" or ESO division was making the country's power costlier and dirtier by failing to use their technology properly. "Consumers are paying more, clean renewable energy is being wasted, and fossil fuel generation is being used instead," they said... depriving them of revenue and undermining investor confidence.
While the U.K. has the world's second-largest offshore wind market, the article notes that when the system operator can't send its power where it's needed, "the ESO pays wind farms in one place to switch off... and can also need to pay gas-fired power plants in another area to turn on. These payments add up to hundreds of millions of pounds each year, and the costs are passed on to household and business energy bills."
"Use of battery storage abroad has soared in places such as California, where batteries soak up solar power during the day and regularly supply a fifth of the state's power in the evening..."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the article.
While the U.K. has the world's second-largest offshore wind market, the article notes that when the system operator can't send its power where it's needed, "the ESO pays wind farms in one place to switch off... and can also need to pay gas-fired power plants in another area to turn on. These payments add up to hundreds of millions of pounds each year, and the costs are passed on to household and business energy bills."
"Use of battery storage abroad has soared in places such as California, where batteries soak up solar power during the day and regularly supply a fifth of the state's power in the evening..."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the article.
Re: (Score:2)
Hint: look into pumped hydro, best last time I checked.
We have this in Scotland, but it isn't going to be possible for it to be used in the flatter parts of the UK. Other mechanisms will be necessary.
20000 gallon pond in my backyard? (Score:2)
A battery box does fit however.
All storage systems lose energy charging (Score:2)
Batteries are no worse than hydro and a lot more convenient. You can only install hydro if the geography and geology allow it, batteries can be installed pretty much anywhere.
Re: (Score:2)
Did you forget to take your pills this morning?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Pumped hydro round-trip efficiency is 70-80% ($106 and $200 per kilowatt-hour)
Battery round-trip efficiency is about 80-90% (lithium-ion) ($393 and $581)
Battery round-trip efficiency is about 50-60% (iron-oxygen) ($40 to $60)
Problem with pumped hydro is that there are not many places where you can build it and it requires a lot of space. If these are not a problem, it is a good alternative.
Re: (Score:3)
There are benefits to both.
Batteries can react really fast, in a fraction of a cycle. Very handy for dealing with sudden loads and local brown-out issues.
Pumped storage has spinning mass which helps with frequency stability. You can just have the spinning mass on its own of course, which Ireland is using now.
Re: (Score:2)
There are benefits to both.
Batteries can react really fast, in a fraction of a cycle. Very handy for dealing with sudden loads and local brown-out issues.
Pumped storage has spinning mass which helps with frequency stability. You can just have the spinning mass on its own of course, which Ireland is using now.
Capacitors could do that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
What a waste... (Score:1)
Slow SlashDotWeekend?
> can't send its power where it's needed,
Power isn't "sent". There is a demand for power and power is transmitted. Battiers are on of the sources where stored power can be retriieved.
What DO those high paid "storage managers" do? They turn on and off things to avoid overloading the grid (see above), causing power plant starvation, etc. They don't actually control PRODUCTION of power, or DISTRIBUTION of power, other than a really gross (as in not-fine) adjustment of how the power
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, the UK grid, like most of Western Europe, is very stable. Power outages are rare and only happen due to physical damage to the network, e.g. severe storms or construction accidents.
We don't have issues like in the US where the grid operator and the generators are to blame for problems.
Privatisation (Score:3)
This is what happens when you privatise basic utlities that are a monopoly. As they have no competition they become more interested in servicing dividend payments and maintaining share price via ever higher charges than improving the the infrastructure they're responsible for. Water companies are another example of this failed model.
Re: (Score:2)
I will admit that my favorite utilities have always been cooperatives.
And with good reason (Score:2)
Battery storage will never scale up to anything more than a few hours' storage to smooth out demand peaks. Even covering a few days of low renewable generation isn't feasible. Case in point, the UK already has Europe's largest grid battery storage facility. It cost £75 million and holds a 98 MWh, enough to power the UK for a few seconds.
The best way of managing a surplus or deficit of wind energy is via interconnection with other markets, and the UK has a number of those with more in the planning stag