Hydrogen vs. Battery

[mspohr]

The article said the sales price is less than $40k after incentives, that's still not as generous as $10k all-in for those 3-year leases with 20k miles/year, free fuel, free 21-day rentals, free tolling to closest refilling station while inside CA, and free loaners when the refilling stations blow up/out of fuel!

The article does note that 98% of their "sales" are leases... nobody buys these cars. The lease deals are essentially free cars. The last one I saw had a fuel credit that was greater than the lease payments so the car was free.

 

[acoste]

It appears that the mining industry is the one holding up the battery production.

“As we scale battery production to very high levels, we have to look further down the supply chain and we might get into the mining business… I don’t know. A little bit at least. We do whatever we have to to ensure we can scale at the fastest rate possible.”

https://electrek.co/2019/06/12/tesla-battery-cell-production-maxwell-tech/

 

[JRP3]

It appears that the mining industry is the one holding up the battery production.

Not yet.

 

[acoste]

Not yet.

This is not the first time he mentions it
Exclusive: Tesla expects global shortage of electric vehicle battery minerals - sources - Reuters

 

[mspohr]

This is not the first time he mentions it
Exclusive: Tesla expects global shortage of electric vehicle battery minerals - sources - Reuters

"down the road"
People are constantly predicting shortages of all kinds of things. Fortunately, for most things, there is an unlimited supply at the right price. I wouldn't worry about this now. I'm sure everyone (automakers, battery makers, mines, etc.) is on the case.

 

[dgatwood]

It's $/kWh that matters. Turns out that using PV to make electricity is very cheap and using heat from solar to make electricity is very expensive. To the point that it's usually cheaper to install PV on your roof and use a heat pump to heat your water instead of just heating your water directly from solar.

That's only partially true, though. Using PV cells to make electricity is cheap only if you ignore all the externalities, including:

• Energy storage for use at night.
• Recycling the toxic materials used to make them.
• The total infeasibility of producing enough PV cells to meet the world's power needs.

When you factor in any one of those, solar towers and other approaches start to become a lot more interesting, because ultimately it doesn't matter if you can produce 1.66% of our country's energy needs with solar if there's no path forward that can feasibly get you past the 20% mark using only PV in our lifetimes.

By contrast, you can store heat and use it to produce energy later (molten salt designs, for example). They're made with readily bulk-available materials like glass, steel, and aluminum, and manufacturing of mirrors is really, really cheap compared with manufacturing PV cells, so once a design is proven reliable, ramping it up to volume production is much easier than ramping up PV manufacturing.

 

[nwdiver]

That's only partially true, though. Using PV cells to make electricity is cheap only if you ignore all the externalities, including:

• Energy storage for use at night.
• Recycling the toxic materials used to make them.
• The total infeasibility of producing enough PV cells to meet the world's power needs.

• Irrelevant until supply significantly exceeds demand. The leading state CA is able to consume >95% as it's produced.
• 95% of PV is Silicon. The most dangerous thing they contain is Aluminum.
• 95% of PV is Silicon. They're >90% Silicon and Aluminum. Literally the two most common (solid at room temp) elements on Earth. If we so desired there's enough material to literally cover the planet in PV... we only need 0.1%.

Storage is like some weird fetish. If PV supply is 40GW and demand is 50GW it make ZERO sense to store it! If PV supply is occasionally 60GW and demand is 50GW.... load shift. If PV supply is often 60GW and sometimes 70GW.... load shift. If PV supply exceeds demand everyday by 10GW and you're curtailing ~10% in March..... still more cost effective to load shift... If PV supply exceeds demand by 15GW and you're curtailing 15% in March and 5% in June.... start requiring new panels face west... and load shift. If PV supply exceeds demand by 20GW and you're curtailing ~20% in Marching and 5% annually.... ok... start to THINK about storage.

Stop worrying about storage.......... focus on adding the cheapest kWh and getting demand response smart enough to use it.

 

[Phrixotrichus]

Stop worrying about storage.......... .

Quite the contrary needs to be done...

We overproduce in the summer and then we have to fall back to nuclear and coal power in the winter months.
We need massive storage capabilities before renewables can progress further over here.

 

[nwdiver]

Quite the contrary needs to be done...

We overproduce in the summer and then we have to fall back to nuclear and coal power in the winter months.
We need massive storage capabilities before renewables can progress further over here.

How high are the curtailment levels in Germany. It's <5% in the US. Demand Response is a more effective response to curtailment until it reaches >10% depending on the cost of solar and storage.

When your generation is ~$1/w... it's cheaper to just add more to fill in the gaps than to dump $$$ into expensive batteries to try to capture over production with storage. Eventually storage will make sense but not anytime soon (~5-10 years).

It's just math. If you can reduce emissions by 10kWh/yr with $100 invested in storage or 50kWh/yr with $100 invested solar does it matter that you're curtailing 50kWh/yr? 50 > 10. Curtailment is irrelevant to that calculation... it doesn't change the fact that 50 > 10.....

You can make the same comparison to storage. For the next 5-10 years in most circumstances it's more cost effective to add renewables and increase curtailment then to use storage to increase production by decreasing curtailment. Demand Response is ~Free. That needs to come first.

Curtailment of low-cost renewables a cost-effective alternative to ‘seasonal’ energy storage

 

[Phrixotrichus]

It's just math. If you can reduce emissions by 10kWh/yr with $100 invested in storage or 50kWh/yr with $100 invested solar does it matter that you're curtailing 50kWh/yr? 50 > 10. Curtailment is irrelevant to that calculation... it doesn't change the fact that 50 > 10.....

Making emissions the absolute top priority to the point that you`re sacrificing grid stability on that altar and accept rampant curtailment, dispatch and gap-fill costs is financial suicide....We´re experiencing this first hand in central europe atm.

we just cracked the 0,3€ line for a single kw/h with the stock power prices in the reds a lot of the time in summer and a boatload of power plants kept in standby for the winter months.....

So yeah, just building up renewables further without the storage question solved might save on the emissions during 2 of the 4 seasons of the year, but damn we`re paying dearly for that "green" conscience......

 

[nwdiver]

Making emissions the absolute top priority to the point that you`re sacrificing grid stability on that altar and accept rampant curtailment, dispatch and gap-fill costs is financial suicide....We´re experiencing this first hand in central europe atm.

It's not 'sacrificing' grid stability. Grid operators have been getting better and better at integrating intermittent renewables. If any thing overbuilding IMPROVES stability since solar and wind that are curtailed can load follow. SPP is now able to operate the grid on ~70% renewables with ~zero storage.

we just cracked the 0,3€ line for a single kw/h with the stock power prices in the reds a lot of the time in summer and a boatload of power plants kept in standby for the winter months.....

So yeah, just building up renewables further without the storage question solved might save on the emissions during 2 of the 4 seasons of the year, but damn we`re paying dearly for that "green" conscience......

Again - it's just math. If it's cheaper to shift a kWh with storage then shift a kWh with storage. In most cases it's cheaper to overbuild to get a kWh where you need it and curtail a few kWh than to store a kWh and use it later. There needs to be A LOT more emphasis on Demand Response. There are tools that we have not even begun to use like utilizing water heaters as thermal storage. That's ~3kWh for <$100 vs >$300 with the cheapest batteries.

Here's another way of looking at it... the cost of solar and wind have declined ~50% in the last 10 years. So even if half of what you install is curtailed it's STILL cheaper today than 10 years ago.... and <10% is being curtailed.

Stressing about storage today is analogous to a high school freshman worrying about their dissertation.... give it some thought but there are probably more immediate concerns.

 

[Phrixotrichus]

Again - it's just math.

and again I don`t agree with that math nor does the situation with the rapid improvements apply to a lot of places where the eco-fetishists are trying to make us swallow the infrastructure investments all at once.
Keeping all those plants for backup due to the lack of any storage options while heavily subsidizing the renewables on the other side is just crazy expensive by itself.....

This needs to be slowed down.
You can`t sleep for 60 years and then decide to have everything up and running yesterday, which is exactly what our politicians are doing.

 

[acoste]

It's not 'sacrificing' grid stability. Grid operators have been getting better and better at integrating intermittent renewables. If any thing overbuilding IMPROVES stability since solar and wind that are curtailed can load follow. SPP is now able to operate the grid on ~70% renewables with ~zero storage.

Germany is one step ahead of SPP.
Share of renewables in 2018 in Germany: 35-40% (20% wind, 8% solar)
Share of renewables in 2018 for SPP: 28.5% (23.5% wind, 0.2% solar)

And the main renewables from SSP (hydro and wind) don't have the intraday swings like solar. Germany has reached negative electricity rates several times already.

 

[nwdiver]

Germany is one step ahead of SPP.
Share of renewables in 2018 in Germany: 35-40% (20% wind, 8% solar)
Share of renewables in 2018 for SPP: 28.5% (23.5% wind, 0.2% solar)

And the main renewables from SSP (hydro and wind) don't have the intraday swings like solar. Germany has reached negative electricity rates several times already.

Wind is less consistent and less predictable than solar. SPP uses because up until recently it was cheaper.

and again I don`t agree with that math

Wind and solar are <$0.04/kWh. Storage is >$0.10/kWh. Even if 50% of solar and wind are curtailed it's STLL cheaper than storage. Which part of that do you disagree with?

When storage is cheaper than using generators for backup then it will make sense to use storage over generators....

 

[acoste]

Wind is less consistent and less predictable than solar. SPP uses because up until recently it was cheaper.



Wind and solar are <$0.04/kWh. Storage is >$0.10/kWh. Even if 50% of solar and wind are curtailed it's STLL cheaper than storage. Which part of that do you disagree with?

When storage is cheaper than using generators for backup then it will make sense to use storage over generators....

24 hour forecast for wind is good enough. But predictability is one thing and storage requirement is another. Since wind doesn't stop completely overnight, the max/min ratio is less and needs less storage than solar.

Stressing about storage today is analogous to a high school freshman worrying about their dissertation.... give it some thought but there are probably more immediate concerns.

It is a balance of costs. High swings caused by demand and renewables generate the need for more expensive energy on demand while investing in storage cost money as well. I believe every single installation has different tipping point. Every country is different. Cost of electricity by source - Wikipedia
Since Germany is already over the convenient percentage of renewables, their main issue is storage, not generators. Who wants to invest in renewables that will be off grid and idling at some percentage of the time?

 

[nwdiver]

Since Germany is already over the convenient percentage of renewables, their main issue is storage, not generators. Who wants to invest in renewables that will be off grid and idling at some percentage of the time?

Someone that needs the generation when it's not idling. Even it it's 'idle' 50% of the time it's still cheaper than storage and still cheaper than any other low carbon energy source. I doubt it's >10% yet. When storage is cheaper then storage will make sense. In the meantime adding wind or solar even if some is curtailed is the better option. Use Demand Response to shift loads when there's a surplus to take advantage.

 

[acoste]

Someone that needs the generation when it's not idling. Even it it's 'idle' 50% of the time it's still cheaper than storage and still cheaper than any other low carbon energy source. I doubt it's >10% yet. When storage is cheaper then storage will make sense. In the meantime adding wind or solar even if some is curtailed is the better option. Use Demand Response to shift loads when there's a surplus to take advantage.

How is it cheaper? Again every country is different. If you check that wikipedia link for Germany. Onshore wind power costs are around 60Euro / MWh ~=67$/MWh
Let's say battery costs are $150/kWh. Let's say battery lifetime is 2000 cycles. Both numbers are pessimistic.
Let's say 30% of the wind energy needs to be stored to smoothen the swing,
And assume that the wind generator runs 200 day / year.
Wind turbine life span = 20 years

Total wind energy generated in Germany = 120TWh.

Total wind energy generated in 20 years = 2400 TWh
Total cost investments and running costs of wind generation based on the LCOE number above = 2400*1e6*67 = $161B

Battery stores 30% of daily energy produced.
Daily energy = 120TWh / 200 day = 600 GWh
30% of it = 120 GWh
200 cycles in 10 years = 2000 cycles so this needs to be invested twice.
Total costs of batteries = 2*150$/kWh*(120G/1k) = $54B

If there is no storage, 30% energy gets lost or given away for free. To get the same 2400TWh net energy, they need to invest 43% more wind energy which costs additional $68.9B

This is daily storage only. Seasonal storage is not feasible. Efficiency drops fast (with idling) if one wants to solve seasonal swings by adding more wind turbines.

 

[nwdiver]

How is it cheaper? Again every country is different. If you check that wikipedia link for Germany. Onshore wind power costs are around 60Euro / MWh ~=67$/MWh
Let's say battery costs are $150/kWh. Let's say battery lifetime is 2000 cycles. Both numbers are pessimistic.
Let's say 30% of the wind energy needs to be stored to smoothen the swing,
And assume that the wind generator runs 200 day / year.
Wind turbine life span = 20 years

Total wind energy generated in Germany = 120TWh.

Total wind energy generated in 20 years = 2400 TWh
Total cost investments and running costs of wind generation based on the LCOE number above = 2400*1e6*67 = $161B

Battery stores 30% of daily energy produced.
Daily energy = 120TWh / 200 day = 600 GWh
30% of it = 120 GWh
200 cycles in 10 years = 2000 cycles so this needs to be invested twice.
Total costs of batteries = 2*150$/kWh*(120G/1k) = $54B

If there is no storage, 30% energy gets lost or given away for free. To get the same 2400TWh net energy, they need to invest 43% more wind energy which costs additional $68.9B

This is daily storage only. Seasonal storage is not feasible. Efficiency drops fast (with idling) if one wants to solve seasonal swings by adding more wind turbines.

You're making the assumption that there's sufficient surplus energy available DAILY to utilize the battery sufficient enough to justify the capital investment. Curtailment periods are not that regular in most places and are no where near 30% yet. Curtailment hit a new record in CA last month at a whopping 3%. Onshore wind is closer to $40/MWh and grid-tied storage is closer to ~$350/kWh.

 

[acoste]

You're making the assumption that there's sufficient surplus energy available DAILY to utilize the battery sufficient enough to justify the capital investment. Curtailment periods are not that regular in most places and are no where near 30% yet. Curtailment hit a new record in CA last month at a whopping 3%. Onshore wind is closer to $40/MWh and grid-tied storage is closer to ~$350/kWh.

As you can see there are many parameters that vary. One can't say that this or that is cheaper. Wikipedia suggests onshore wind is more expensive in Germany compared to your numbers.

If it is feasible? First, many of these are required by law and are subsidized. Second, if you check the German numbers, coal and nat gas aren't much cheaper than the wind+battery combo.

 

[nwdiver]

As you can see there are many parameters that vary. One can't say that this or that is cheaper. Wikipedia suggests onshore wind is more expensive in Germany compared to your numbers.

If it is feasible? First, many of these are required by law and are subsidized. Second, if you check the German numbers, coal and nat gas aren't much cheaper than the wind+battery combo.

What are the curtailment levels? I still can't find numbers...

~5 years ago it was 0.15% and it was actually getting better as the Germans improved integration.