Ya! And there is a lot of research and investment into them. The problem is they lose capacity over time from being powered and drained (think phone batteries and other lithium batteries). From what I know hydro batteries are actually really big with power companies. Basically pumping a bunch of water uphill when you have excess power, then using the reservoir like a hydro plant when you need power. They are really inefficient, but work surprisingly well at storing a lot of power
Comment on Why is coal and fossil fuels still used?
Greyghoster@aussie.zone 1 day agoThat’s where batteries and other storage systems come into play.
shice@lemmy.world 1 day ago
monkeyman512@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’ve seen some videos talking about iron based battery tech. My understanding is that is doesn’t wear out nearly as fast as lithium based tech and less of a fire risk. Downside is that it is less energy dense, so doesn’t work for mobile applications. But that shouldn’t be a problem for stationary applications, like the power grid.
zxqwas@lemmy.world 1 day ago
They were still more expensive than fossil power on standby last time I looked.
Greyghoster@aussie.zone 1 day ago
Lots being installed around Australia and are a lot cheaper than gas power generation for covering peaks.
zxqwas@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Can you show me the numbers?
The numbers I found unsubsidized gas is about USD0.5/kWh and battery is USD150 per kWh. This is a 10 minute search so the quality of those numbers are dubious, I’m prepared to have my mind changed.
exasperation@lemm.ee 9 hours ago
Lazard is a pretty respected analyst for energy costs. Here’s their report from June 2024.
In the U.S., peaker gas plants that are only fired up between 5-20% of the time, the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) is between $110 to $230 per MWh. The levelized cost of storage for utility scale 4-hour storage ranges from $124-$226 per MWh, after subsidies. Before subsidies, that 4-hour storage costs $170-$296.
Residential storage, on the other hand, doesn’t come close. That’s $882 to $1101 before subsidies, or $653 to $855 after subsidies.
So in other words, utility scale storage has dropped down to around the same price as gas peaker plants, in the U.S., after subsidies.
exasperation@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Yeah, people are working on it.
The EIA estimates that there’s about 30 GW of battery capacity in the U.S., mostly in storage systems that are designed to store about 1-4 hours worth.
That’s in comparison to 1,200 GW of generation capacity, or 400 times as much as there is storage.
It’s coming along, but the orders of magnitude difference between real-time supply and demand and our capacity for shifting some of the power just a few hours isn’t quite ready for load balancing across a whole 24 hour day, much less for days-long weather patterns or even seasonality across the year. We’re probably gonna need to see another few years of exponential growth before it starts actually making a big impact to generation activity.