S. A. Needs Help

[raynewman]

pumped hydro has a lot of reliability when it is between 2 dams
vs
hydro generation which has variable reliability on inflow and outflow.

If hydro and battery are same price for 4 hours, then great, but that battery is either a daily cycle or emergency only cycle battery, but not both.
if hydro for 168 hours is same price as hydro for 4 hours, then its obviously better and can be used for both daily cycle and emergency only cycle.

a hydro dam with 168 hours capacity is far greater usefulness than a hydo dam with 4 hours capacity. just as
a hydro dam with 168 hours capacity is far greater usefulness than a battery with 4 hours capacity

diminishing returns, but its still 42x times longer capacity for the same money.

until the water all evaporates.

Don't understand "if hydro for 168 hours is same price as hydro for 4 hours, then its obviously better and can be used for both daily cycle and emergency only cycle."

 

[WhiteStar]

Seawater pumped hydro sounds much more sensible for SA. Only one so far has ever been built - in Okinawa, Japan. It was online for 17 years but linked to a coal-fired power station.

Snowy Hydro gets a boost, but 'seawater hydro' could help South Australia

 

[SageBrush]

Seawater pumped hydro sounds much more sensible for SA. Only one so far has ever been built - in Okinawa, Japan. It was online for 17 years but linked to a coal-fired power station.

Snowy Hydro gets a boost, but 'seawater hydro' could help South Australia

Oh, right!
I remember reading about a similar system for Chile but I don't think it is built yet.

 

[Shock-On-T]

The other consideration here is they could use the $2Bn as a subsidy, say 20% off the battery purchase price to incentivise homeowners and businesses to purchase it (although for homeowners the economics are good enough now, two more years worth of bill shock and price rises and people will be falling over themselves to get off grid). This would result in $10 Bn of batteries being installed. They could advance order a huge number of Powerwall 2 batteries and flog them off with the discount, getting a bulk buy discount in the process. This would result in, @$500/KWH, 10GW of response and 20 GWH of storage. The batteries are covered for ten years at which point they can be reconditioned or recycled, with some pretty valuable materials in them. A huge pumped hydro scheme only keeps the grid centralised. A truly robust, safe and cheap grid is de-centralised. Poles and wires cost a *sugar* ton of money.

That's using the old noodle.

 

[eclectricdave]

Not to forget Tidal Power which of course uses saltwater. There is an installation in La France (which Ive seen). Is really low head high volume and works for tidal flow both directions. Rance R Estuary 240MW.

 

[raynewman]

Not to forget Tidal Power which of course uses saltwater. There is an installation in La France (which Ive seen). Is really low head high volume and works for tidal flow both directions. Rance R Estuary 240MW.

Isn't there one of those in west oz?

 

[TesAus]

About 25 years ago I visited a pumped hydro scheme in Wales called Dinorwig or "the electric mountain". It has an installed capacity of nearly 2000MW and the turbine hall was basically a cave hollowed out in the mountain. They would keep two of the turbines spinning on air when not producing so that they could bring the system on line within seconds of a call to dispatch power.

At that time it relied upon the cheap base load coal power overnight to return the water to the top reservoir and then was brought on line at times of expected or instantaneous peak demand.

I think it is good to have a variety of technologies for storage. Pumped hydro is a proven technology. It obviously needs ongoing maintenance and after somewhere between 20 and 40 years would need major overhaul or replacement of turbines/pumps etc. Whilst essentially a closed loop system, in a hot climate it also needs to overcome evaporation losses but that is lessened with large scale reservoirs compared to smaller scale ponds etc.

Batteries are rapidly developing and have the benefits of being more easily distributed around the grid. The question mark for batteries, particularly with new chemistries, is how much capacity they will have after say ten years.

 

[NovoCasGreeny]

until the water all evaporates.

Don't understand "if hydro for 168 hours is same price as hydro for 4 hours, then its obviously better and can be used for both daily cycle and emergency only cycle."

I don't either. The assumption that batteries cycle and pumped hydro doesn't, welllll it doesn't compute for me. Both systems rely on power to fill them. When the grid goes down the pumped hydro will lose it's ability to move water between the dams, immedaite solar supplies would only be creating the same system as a battery plus solar. A 336 GWH system would be monstrous, or require cycling. The best outcome for all is some larger storage at the grid level, smaller storage at the substation level, small storage at the community level and micro storage at the consumer level. Floods and huge disasters will take out the grid which will lead to an inability to move electricity around, so a vast pumped hydro system would be as helpful as a hedgehog in a condom factory. Distributed batteries, here there and everywhere would see most of the country still online. Most houses would *get by* with a 5 KW PV system and a 14 kwh battery (meaning they will still be able to use everything most of the year, not a giant ducted AC system but we're talking floods here).

 

[Bangor Bob]

The other consideration here is they could use the $2Bn as a subsidy, say 20% off the battery purchase price to incentivise homeowners and businesses to purchase it (although for homeowners the economics are good enough now, two more years worth of bill shock and price rises and people will be falling over themselves to get off grid). This would result in $10 Bn of batteries being installed. They could advance order a huge number of Powerwall 2 batteries and flog them off with the discount, getting a bulk buy discount in the process. This would result in, @$500/KWH, 10GW of response and 20 GWH of storage. The batteries are covered for ten years at which point they can be reconditioned or recycled, with some pretty valuable materials in them. A huge pumped hydro scheme only keeps the grid centralised. A truly robust, safe and cheap grid is de-centralised. Poles and wires cost a *sugar* ton of money.

Lets take that a small step further - in areas with more concentrated population, do a variation on community solar - where a group of homeowners buy a share of a commercial-sized solar plant - and do a community Powerpack. Lower up-front cost, lower installation cost, and co-sited at the local substation so a benefit to the entire local community.

 

[eclectricdave]

We have the solution in our own cars. If Tesla would allow our cars to support the grid when required. Eg if 20kW export 1000 cars is 20MW. Would need direct access to battery & a grid/battery inverter. Not sure if motor inverter is suitable.

 

[NovoCasGreeny]

Lets take that a small step further - in areas with more concentrated population, do a variation on community solar - where a group of homeowners buy a share of a commercial-sized solar plant - and do a community Powerpack. Lower up-front cost, lower installation cost, and co-sited at the local substation so a benefit to the entire local community.

I've been to Bangor once or twice in my 8 visits to the best state in the US!!! I did make another comment suggesting exactly this. Solar and batteries everywhere. Large footprint facilities like warehouses that don't use much power would be perfect to establish community solar supply. We could also cover many roads, carparks and other sterilised land with solar carports. In this country we have no excuse whatsoever to not have solar PV and hot water on every single residential building....well except it would decimate the coal industry and that would be bad for political donations.