Hydrogen vs. Battery

[mblakele]

That is exactly right, but nwdiver argues that curtailment is not to avoid stress on the grid, hence the last few pages of discussion.

"Stress" may be going too far, and I apologize if I posted misinformation. CA ISO is a bit vague about it. They simply talk about "oversupply". They don't say whether oversupply stresses the grid or not: simply that it's supply in excess of demand.

http://www.caiso.com/Documents/CurtailmentFastFacts.pdf

CA ISO suggests storage as one of many solutions. But the point of this new study is that it may be better to overbuild, ignoring oversupply.

Solar Energy Journal study

Well how come it is just me off-topic while the other posters also build their cases for/against storage?

Mostly because you asserted that the discussion topic is how to avoid curtailments. No, not in this thread. This thread topic is hydrogen vs battery — and this is the Electric Vehicles subforum, so it should relate to BEV vs HFC.

I get that you're trying to build a case for stationary storage because your arguments for HFC vehicles have been thoroughly debunked. That led you to try to save your theory that hydrogen must be part of the future, by arguing for stationary storage. Maybe — I don't think so, but we've humored you with a lot of discussion debunking that idea too.

But strictly speaking it's off topic here, and I'm one of those people who believe that threads have topics.

If you don't like to hear me complain about it, you could start a new thread in Energy, Environment, and Policy to discuss whatever combination of curtailment, storage, and hydrogen you'd like to explore.

 

[scaesare]

Fire sale on Toyota Mirai
Toyota Mirai gets deepest discount yet—amid hydrogen shortage

The two modest fuel-cell models you can currently purchase (versus lease) both carry luxury-vehicle prices: a base $59,430 for the 2019 Toyota Mirai and a base $59,345 for the eco-focused Hyundai Nexo Blue. Trade-in or resale value remains an unknown. And at the last time we filled with hydrogen, last October, it cost $17.49 per kilogram—potentially up to a $75 fill for the 312-mile Mirai or a $110 fill for the 380-mile Nexo B
CarsDirect crunched the numbers and found that for the savings (for a narrow subset of shoppers, admittedly) could add up to more than $42,000.

Wow ..about $0.24/mile for H2 in the Mirai.

I pay around $0.03/mile with my Model S

 

[scaesare]

Tesla's claim at one point was to take all superchargers off grid and be powered by solar and battery storage, but that has not proceeded that far, meaning most superchargers are still grid tied.

I don't believe that's correct.

Elon spoke of offsetting their usage with solar, but not taking all superchargers off grid.

 

[buyer123456]

I don't believe that's correct.

Elon spoke of offsetting their usage with solar, but not taking all superchargers off grid.

This is almost 2 year old.

https://electrek.co/2017/06/09/tesla-superchargers-solar-battery-grid-elon-musk/

"CEO Elon Musk said that they plan to deploy more battery and solar systems with the upcoming ‘Version 3’ of the Supercharger, but now he went a step further and claimed that “almost all Superchargers will disconnect from the electricity grid.”

 

[buyer123456]

Mostly because you asserted that the discussion topic is how to avoid curtailments. No, not in this thread. This thread topic is hydrogen vs battery — and this is the Electric Vehicles subforum, so it should relate to BEV vs HFC.

Well nwdiver asserted that there is no enough curtailments hence there is no need to worry about storage, plus another poster asserted that 1m EVs sitting idle can be used to soak up any excess PV outputs.

Both of which are not my assertions.I did participate to point out the holes in their assertions.

I get that you're trying to build a case for stationary storage because your arguments for HFC vehicles have been thoroughly debunked. That led you to try to save your theory that hydrogen must be part of the future, by arguing for stationary storage. Maybe — I don't think so, but we've humored you with a lot of discussion debunking that idea too.

But strictly speaking it's off topic here, and I'm one of those people who believe that threads have topics.

Again, certain deep pocket automakers plus quite a few countries are working hard at hydrogen, apparently they do not agree with nor read about debunking in public forums like this. Within my first few posts on this thread from 2 weeks ago, I clearly stated the above(that so many are working on hydrogen), plus my surprise why that is the case. After these 2 weeks on this thread, it becomes clear to me that FCEV, BEV, PHEV, and even high-mpg ICE, are all viable options going forward.

If you don't like to hear me complain about it, you could start a new thread in Energy, Environment, and Policy to discuss whatever combination of curtailment, storage, and hydrogen you'd like to explore.

From my perspectives, the subjects discussed by me are relevant to this "Hydrogen vs. Battery" thread. E.g. H2 vs. charged battery storage, on-EV versus mass storage, and how the "fuel" gets to the car, clearly are related to EVs. If your interest is no related to these subjects, there is always the option not to participate.

 

[scaesare]

This is almost 2 year old.

https://electrek.co/2017/06/09/tesla-superchargers-solar-battery-grid-elon-musk/

"CEO Elon Musk said that they plan to deploy more battery and solar systems with the upcoming ‘Version 3’ of the Supercharger, but now he went a step further and claimed that “almost all Superchargers will disconnect from the electricity grid.”

Well, although technically not "all", that's nit-picking, so I concede that you are essentially correct. Thanks.

 

[dgatwood]

Let's try reality. (Because no where in the US is nuclear >50% of demand...)

The actual numbers right now are completely irrelevant. One contributing factor to the lack of construction in nuclear power is the inflexibility of the base load, and storage would help encourage nuclear power plant construction right now. And any time you curtail power from renewables, you're throwing power away, and storage would help with that right now, and would remove yet another excuse for not building out wind farms, and so on.

"Stress" may be going too far, and I apologize if I posted misinformation. CA ISO is a bit vague about it. They simply talk about "oversupply". They don't say whether oversupply stresses the grid or not: simply that it's supply in excess of demand.

IIRC, with AC, oversupply mainly results in generators being under-loaded, which causes them to run faster than normal, which pushes the line frequency beyond tolerances (which are a lot sloppier than they used to be). If the oversupply gets too severe, they have to either use a dummy load to burn off excess power or power down some generation capacity to prevent turbines from going too fast and potentially damaging the equipment.

Depending on the generator, it may also be possible to reduce the output to prevent an overspeed condition; for example, in the case of steam-based power plants, they can typically divert some of the steam around the turbines, thus reducing its ability to spin the turbines, reducing the speed of the turbines, and reducing the resulting power output.

 

[nwdiver]

The actual numbers right now are completely irrelevant. One contributing factor to the lack of construction in nuclear power is the inflexibility of the base load, and storage would help encourage nuclear power plant construction right now. And any time you curtail power from renewables, you're throwing power away, and storage would help with that right now, and would remove yet another excuse for not building out wind farms, and so on.

If nuclear is incompatible with the needs of the grid perhaps we need to pick a more compatible power source instead of molding the needs of the grid around what's compatible with nuclear....

The OBJECTIVE of storage is to reduce fossil fuel use in time A by taking surplus renewables from time B. If it's cheaper to provide power in time A by overbuilding solar or wind even if that means more curtailment.... wouldn't that be the more prudent investment? CA has the most severe curtailment at ~3%. At those levels it's still <$0.04/kWh to add solar or wind even if ~3% is lost to curtailment vs >$0.10/kWh to capture that curtailment with storage....

Minnesota study finds it cheaper to curtail solar than to add storage

 

[dgatwood]

If nuclear is incompatible with the needs of the grid perhaps we need to pick a more compatible power source instead of molding the needs of the grid around what's compatible with nuclear....

I think you're missing the point. No matter what the power source, with the sole exception of stored power (batteries, pump water storage, etc.), if you don't use the power that the power source provides, you lose it. And load is somewhat variable. Therefore, the grid is always wasting some power, even right now, even in the best of circumstances. So even right now, grid batteries make a big difference in power costs by storing the energy that would be wasted when supply is greater than demand and releasing it when demand is greater than supply, thus evening out the power voltage, reducing the frequency of power plant startups/shutdowns/output adjustments, etc.

And the more you load up the grid with renewables, the less you'll be able to maintain consistent amounts of power availability, which means your only options are either to A. massively overbuild and waste most of your capacity so that you don't have brownouts when the load spikes or B. store it. So in the long term, storage is unavoidable if you want to get off of fossil fuels. We're already at the point where storage is needed, and it will only get worse from here.

The OBJECTIVE of storage is to reduce fossil fuel use in time A by taking surplus renewables from time B. If it's cheaper to provide power in time A by overbuilding solar or wind even if that means more curtailment.... wouldn't that be the more prudent investment?

Only up to the point where you can't get rid of any more fossil fuels because of the need for power at night. It will approximately never become cheaper to build solar power plants that can work at night.

Besides, it isn't cheaper to provide power by overbuilding. In California, it might well be cheaper for the utility because they can pass on the cost of power to the consumer more easily than the cost of infrastructure improvements, but in terms of the actual cost to consumers, storage is often cheaper. A lot cheaper.

 

[nwdiver]

Only up to the point where you can't get rid of any more fossil fuels because of the need for power at night. It will approximately never become cheaper to build solar power plants that can work at night.

Besides, it isn't cheaper to provide power by overbuilding. In California, it might well be cheaper for the utility because they can pass on the cost of power to the consumer more easily than the cost of infrastructure improvements, but in terms of the actual cost to consumers, storage is often cheaper. A lot cheaper.

I agree we'll need storage... eventually. But currently... in most circumstances... as the MN study shows. It's cheaper to add 1kW of renewables and toss ~5% of it than to buy storage at ~$350/kWh and use it once-in-a-while to capture that 5%. The best way right now to reduce curtailment is demand response.

Most storage deployed on the grid now is used more for its kW than its kWh. If 200MW is needed for 1 hour a 200MW inverter backed by ~300MWh of storage can be cheaper and quicker to deploy than 200MW of gas turbine.

 

[WannabeOwner]

most superchargers are still grid tied

In the UK (at least) Tesla buy all their Supercharger electricity from green/renewable sources.

 

[buyer123456]

In the UK (at least) Tesla buy all their Supercharger electricity from green/renewable sources.

In the context of discussing "1 million EVs waiting for excess solar", even when superchargers get renewables, that chunk of electricity still needs to be routed from remote solar through the grid, adding that much stress on the grid.

In contrast, if a supercharger can be off-grid with solar and storage, then EV (charging from that supercharger) itself can be treated as local storage, as it is totally off grid.

 

[mblakele]

IIRC, with AC, oversupply mainly results in generators being under-loaded, which causes them to run faster than normal, which pushes the line frequency beyond tolerances (which are a lot sloppier than they used to be). If the oversupply gets too severe, they have to either use a dummy load to burn off excess power or power down some generation capacity to prevent turbines from going too fast and potentially damaging the equipment.

Depending on the generator, it may also be possible to reduce the output to prevent an overspeed condition; for example, in the case of steam-based power plants, they can typically divert some of the steam around the turbines, thus reducing its ability to spin the turbines, reducing the speed of the turbines, and reducing the resulting power output.

That sounds reasonable. But I'm going to split hairs and say that stress to one generator isn't stress to the grid per se. It's a potential problem for whoever owns that generator.

 

[mblakele]

Again, certain deep pocket automakers plus quite a few countries are working hard at hydrogen, apparently they do not agree with nor read about debunking in public forums like this

Certain deep-pocketed automakers might be said to be wasting their money. Of course, they need compliance credits so they can keep making profitable ICE vehicles. Emitting hot air about an imminent shift to a hydrogen economy also makes certain deep-pocketed automakers look greener. It might even reduce marginal demand for EVs, by convincing some potential buyers to wait for hydrogen. It's been right around the corner for decades now.

After these 2 weeks on this thread, it becomes clear to me that FCEV, BEV, PHEV, and even high-mpg ICE, are all viable options going forward.

Depends on your time horizon and on what happens technologically — and what you mean by "viable".

Today, a BEV such as the Tesla Model 3 is practical for a good chunk of the population. BEVs will become practical for more and more people in the coming years, without any advances in technology, simply through scaling up production and broadening the available models. There'll be predictable minor advances too (e.g. Maxwell).

On the other hand an HFC isn't really practical for many people today. It's only affordable because certain deep-pocketed automakers subsidize it very heavily. Even so, very few people choose to drive one. HFC is an even less popular choice than low-production BEVs like the GM Bolt, and much less popular than the Model 3. There are good reasons for this. HFC performance is regrettable. Hydrogen refueling stations are much scarcer than EV chargers, and you can't refuel at home. Hydrogen supply is susceptible to supply interruptions: witness what we're seeing right now in northern California.

Future technology improvements may help with some of these issues. But for today, BEV has won out over HFC.

Take a look at this chart from the 2018 CARB report on HFC vehicles, for example.

They're projecting less than 50,000 HFC vehicles total in CA by 2024. These are numbers from CARB, which is irrationally in love with HFC and hypes it whenever possible. Meanwhile Tesla sold more than 50,000 Model 3 in CA in 2018. That's without counting other BEVs, nor PHEVs.

 

[buyer123456]

Certain deep-pocketed automakers might be said to be wasting their money. Of course, they need compliance credits so they can keep making profitable ICE vehicles. Emitting hot air about an imminent shift to a hydrogen economy also makes certain deep-pocketed automakers look greener. It might even reduce marginal demand for EVs, by convincing some potential buyers to wait for hydrogen. It's been right around the corner for decades now.

The above arguments have been repeated a few times in the last 2 weeks, but these deep-pocket automakers do have to collect their emission credits or else pay up(dearly). As much as this second round of EVs has taken a long time(100+ years from the first round!) to roll out, hydrogen actually does not look too bad. And the emission mandates are tightened year after year, so to survive these deep pocket automakers have to adopt anyway.

 

[buyer123456]

Today, a BEV such as the Tesla Model 3 is practical for a good chunk of the population. BEVs will become practical for more and more people in the coming years, without any advances in technology, simply through scaling up production and broadening the available models. There'll be predictable minor advances too (e.g. Maxwell).

On the other hand an HFC isn't really practical for many people today. It's only affordable because certain deep-pocketed automakers subsidize it very heavily. Even so, very few people choose to drive one. HFC is an even less popular choice than low-production BEVs like the GM Bolt, and much less popular than the Model 3. There are good reasons for this. HFC performance is regrettable. Hydrogen refueling stations are much scarcer than EV chargers, and you can't refuel at home. Hydrogen supply is susceptible to supply interruptions: witness what we're seeing right now in northern California.

BEVs will get their sales and volume, and HFCEVs will get theirs, and this plays out in real time as both encounter their own constraints in their respective stages of deployments, and both are very very far from displacing a meaningful amount of FF consumption.

So my guess is that going forward garages around here can be filled(in descending number of units) with ICE, PHEV + ICE, BEVs, and some FCEVs(which can be expanded to PHEV + FC if battery range is increased).

 

[nwdiver]

BEVs will get their sales and volume, and HFCEVs will get theirs, and this plays out in real time as both encounter their own constraints in their respective stages of deployments, and both are very very far from displacing a meaningful amount of FF consumption.

Except BEVs actually displace FF on a ~3:1 basis. FCEV is ~1:1.... which means they're not displacing anything...

 

[Yggdrasill]

In 2018, global car production was around 1.4% BEV. At a sustained 50% growth, the progression is something like this:

2019: 2.1%
2020: 3.15%
2021: 4.73%
2022: 7.09%
2023: 10.63%
2024: 15.95%
2025: 23.92%
2026: 35.88%
2027: 53.82%
2028: 80.73%
2029: 100%

This may seem unlikely. But the roughly 50% annual growth has been sustained for a while now, and every year, critics say it can't continue. Now, we will likely see the growth rate drop off to some extent as we get into the 2020s, but it remains to see just how much. It's certainly not unlikely that in 2030, global car sales are predominantly BEV.

How do FCEVs fit into this? Well, they don't.

FCEVs fail to exceed BEVs on pretty much any metric. They have marginally more range and refuel in marginally less time, but other than that, they vastly underperform on a wide range of metrics. They cost more, the fuel costs more, they are complicated and heavy, big on the outside and small on the inside, less safe, less efficient, less environmentally friendly, there's no refueling network, require more maintenance, etc. They are just irrelevant for the future.

 

[WannabeOwner]

In the context of discussing "1 million EVs waiting for excess solar", even when superchargers get renewables, that chunk of electricity still needs to be routed from remote solar through the grid, adding that much stress on the grid.

I don't disagree, but I have no knowledge to know if this is an issue.

At Grid Peak the electrical company can bring Peaker Plants online - which are concentrated at specific places and need the grid to distribute their output (I have no idea if the Grid is the limiting factor at that point, and for future expansion of Peaker Plants)

In UK we have PV scattered all over the country - lots of roofs nearby, and a disappointingly large amount of Grade I farming land too Anyway, it is "local".

I also have no knowledge to know if that localised distribution is "easier" for the grid to distribute than a really heavy generator, like a bunch of Peaker Plants at the end of a string of Pylons connecting to my house via many miles of cable and distribution sub-stations.

In UK we have a limit to how much PV I can install on my roof. If I want to install more than that I have to get permission (from the local network operator). They might let me (if there are not many other PV Exporters in my area), if not they will require that I fit a limiter on my Export (so then I have to either Use my excess PV or Store it).

The basic limit is fairly reasonable (matching the number of panels that would fit on the "average house roof"), and no permission is required for that (AFAIK - or local network operator has to figure out how to accommodate it ...). So seems to me that distribution of localised PV is not a problem

 

[buyer123456]

In UK we have a limit to how much PV I can install on my roof. If I want to install more than that I have to get permission (from the local network operator). They might let me (if there are not many other PV Exporters in my area), if not they will require that I fit a limiter on my Export (so then I have to either Use my excess PV or Store it).

The basic limit is fairly reasonable (matching the number of panels that would fit on the "average house roof"), and no permission is required for that (AFAIK - or local network operator has to figure out how to accommodate it ...). So seems to me that distribution of localised PV is not a problem

Do note that electric field propagation does travel close to the speed of light, so the energy exported from local solar's to the grid do aggregate(with peaker plants and remote renewable sources) and contribute to peak load. So export limiting is self defense from utilities.