World's biggest battery - 100 day countdown

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

In around 100 days, the world's largest battery will power South Australia.

The Tesla founder says installation of the 100 megawatt (129MWh) lithium ion battery is now half-way complete.

It will be more than three times larger than any existing power storage facility when it's finished.

The project grew out of a Twitter bet between Musk and Australian software billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes where Musk promised he could build the battery 'in 100 days or its free'.

It comes a year on from South Australia's disastrous blackouts caused by a major storm, which devastated the state.

Tesla won a bid in July to build a 129 megawatt hour (MWh) battery and the state is counting on it to be ready by the start of the southern summer in December when electricity demand begins to peak.

Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk vowed to install it within 100 days of signing a grid connection agreement or give it to the state for free.

The grid agreement was signed on Friday, triggering the countdown, a Tesla spokesperson said.

'The batteries are on track to be operational by December 1,' South Australia Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis told Reuters.

Analysts have estimated the battery should cost around $750 (US $585/£439) to $950 (US $741/£556) per kilowatt, or up to $95 million (US $74 million/ £56 million).

Musk said in July the cost to Tesla would be '$50 million [US $39 million/ £29 million] or more' if it failed to deliver the project on time.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-to-biggest-battery-starts-in-south-australia

 

[FordGT90Concept]

The moral of this story is not to rely solely on wind/solar.

The cost of replacing these systems every 5-10 years (which won't be free) is why Musk is doing it: dependency.

 

[Basard]

If only there was a way we could create heat and/or electricity on demand using something else. It would get rid of the need for all of these giant battery complexes and windmills.

 

[Fourstaff]

The moral of this story is not to rely solely on wind/solar.

The cost of replacing these systems every 5-10 years (which won't be free) is why Musk is doing it: dependency.

I dont think anyone trying to make a resilient power grid will rely solely on wind/solar. However, you can no longer reject them either, because renewables are already situationally competitive against a wide range of power sources.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Only when heavily subsidized and excluding the additional cost added elsewhere in the grid. In other words, not.

Case in point: this Tesla project's operational cost should be tacked on to South Australia's levelized cost of electricity on their renewable sources. But it won't because that would make wind and solar look bad. Which is already getting millions of tax payer dollars to not look bad.

 

[Fourstaff]

Only when heavily subsidized and excluding the additional cost added elsewhere in the grid. In other words, not.

For grids dominated by coal/nuclear where the power supply cannot be changed rapidly, additional costs of having unstable wind/solar is indeed high. However, if a large portion of the grid is gas or hydro powered, intermittent power sources can be added (wind and solar) with very cheaply. Dont forget externalities of coal too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London

Case in point: this Tesla project's operational cost should be tacked on to South Australia's levelized cost of electricity on their renewable sources. But it won't.

That will be failure of govt's contracting strategy for not taking to account of the whole picture. I don't think battery tech is there yet in terms of cost/performance though, it is very likely South Australia is paying a lot of money to be a guinea pig.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesc...ng-away-financing-and-subsidies/#2ebd545a5b88

cf = capacity factor = in a given time frame, how much of it is actually producing power (i.e. nuclear only goes off for periodic refueling and maintenance)

hydro/nuclear (base) -> gas/wind (peak) makes the most sense.

Batteries could theoretically replace gas, even wind, but electric storage is far more costly than production.


There's about $100 billion paid in subsidies globally every year. That money should instead be diverted to fusion research which replaces all of the above.

 

[Fourstaff]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesc...ng-away-financing-and-subsidies/#2ebd545a5b88

cf = capacity factor = in a given time frame, how much of it is actually producing power (i.e. nuclear only goes off for periodic refueling and maintenance)

hydro/nuclear (base) -> gas/wind (peak) makes the most sense.

There's about $100 billion paid in subsidies globally every year. That money should instead be diverted to fusion research.

Even in 2011, wind is already cheaper than gas. Since 2011, Solar costs has fallen by more than half: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy17osti/68925.pdf

There's about $100 billion paid in subsidies globally every year. That money should instead be diverted to fusion research.

Solar plants without subsidies are already being built: https://www.ft.com/content/8ea432e4-a1e9-11e7-9e4f-7f5e6a7c98a2

Isolated and one off, but I think we will be seeing more of these very soon.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Wind as 27% capacity factor; solar has 20%. Something has to fill in those massive gaps.


Also NREL shows about $0.05/kWh LCOE. The 2 cents difference in my chart versus that is taking into consideration 60 years of operation.

 

[Fourstaff]

Wind as 27% capacity factor; solar has 20%. Something has to fill in those massive gaps.

A possible model in the future will be getting the wind/solar plants to pay fee to keep spare capacity in another power plant (battery, hydro, gas, etc.) during downtimes to ensure smooth delivery. That will possibly be the final economic hurdle renewables need to cross: when that moment comes capitalism will do the rest.

Also NREL shows about $0.05/kWh LCOE. The 2 cents difference in my chart versus that is taking into consideration 60 years of operation.

I think they choose 60 year lifecycle because that is roughly how long nuclear power plants last. Solar plants and wind turbines dont last that long, about 20-30 years design life currently. Your chart dates to 2011/2012, solar costs have fallen by a lot since then.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I think they choose 60 year lifecycle because that is roughly how long nuclear power plants last. Solar plants and wind turbines dont last that long, about 20-30 years design life currently. Your chart dates to 2011/2012, solar costs have fallen by a lot since then.

Which substantially adds to their long-term costs. The longer a nuclear power plant runs, the cheaper it becomes. Most nuclear power plants started with a 30-40 year lifespan but that was extended to 50-60 years because it makes economic sense to do so.

 

[Fourstaff]

Which substantially adds to their long-term costs. The longer a nuclear power plant runs, the cheaper it becomes. Most nuclear power plants started with a 30-40 year lifespan but that was extended to 50-60 years because it makes economic sense to do so.

The numbers used in your article is already favourable to nuclear: 50-60 years past their design life of 30-40years vs 15years for wind turbines when they are proven to last more than 20 years.

We can either be in denial about renewables, or prepare ourselves for their coming. It will not kill other sources of energy: we are still burning coal.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I agree, it should go to 100 years instead of 60. That would include at least one replacement for every type of energy source.

The purpose of the article is to talk about exactly that: middle classes are created via affordable electricity. China is still building coal fired plants like crazy; USA isn't building any at all. Any savings by the USA is being more than made up for by developing countries. The trajectory needs to change and it makes sense to look long term to decide what path is best.


If you need 5 MwH of electricity on a daily basis and your only incomes are a mix of solar/wind with combined capacity factor of 25%. You would have to build 20 MwH worth of them along with 5 MwH worth of battery capacity. On a windless, cloudy day (24 hours), you would still run out of power. So realistically, you'd want a lot more battery capacity than 5 MwH. Add on top of that the fact that lithium-ion batteries lose capacity with age, you'd want extra capacity on the front end to compensate on the back end.

Alternatively, you could just build a 5 MwH gas turbine and pay for fuel.