http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/tesla-build-titanic-battery-facility
Tesla announced today that it will build the world's largest lithium-ion battery system to store electricity in Australia. The 100-megawatt installation—more than three times as powerful as the biggest existing battery system—will be paired with the Hornsdale Wind Farm near Jamestown, operated by the French renewable energy company Neoen, in a deal with the state of South Australia. The Tesla battery should smooth out the variability inherent in sustainable power generation schemes.
"Cost-effective storage of electrical energy is the only problem holding us back from getting all of our power from wind and solar," says Ian Lowe, an energy policy specialist at Griffith University in Nathan, Australia, near Brisbane. The Tesla system, he says, will "demonstrate the feasibility of large-scale storage." It might also win over skeptics who doubt that renewables can match the dependability of conventional fossil fuel and nuclear power plants, says Geoffrey James, a renewable energy engineer at University of Technology Sydney.
[...] The battery installation will be a key feature of the state's aggressive move toward reliably generating half of its electricity from renewables by 2025. That drive suffered an image problem last September and again in February, when power blackouts hobbled the state. Conservative politicians were quick to blame South Australia's shift away from fossil fuels. "It's very easy to use a blackout to attack renewable energy," James says. Investigations concluded that the failures were not due to the reliance on renewables but rather to the collapse of transmission towers in one case and unexpected power demands in another. In addition to helping match renewable energy generation and use, James says, the battery facility's "high power capacity will be available in quick bursts" to keep the electricity's frequency in the right range in the event of grid disruptions and demand surges.
Also at BusinessInsider, The Washington Post, and Tesla.
Related Stories
Tesla has been in the news a lot in the last week, with their Model 3 going into production, and their announcement of the world's largest lithium-ion battery storage project in South Australia.
The latest news is unofficial, but from generally reliable sources. A website called Teslarati has published screenshots from Kim of the Like Tesla YouTube channel, which seem to indicate that she and other top referrers are now being offered discounts on "a Founder's Series next gen Roadster" as part of Tesla's referral program. If true this would seem to indicate Tesla formally taking a step forward in the level of their commitment to actually going ahead with this vehicle. They stopped producing their original Roadster in 2012, the same year they started delivering their Model S to customers.
There is also speculation online that the Next Gen Roadster will be one of the "few other things" to be mentioned at the unveiling of the Tesla Semi in late September, as alluded to by Elon Musk (Tesla's CEO) at a shareholder meeting last month.
Tesla "big battery" in Australia is becoming a bigger nightmare for fossil fuel power generators
Tesla's "big battery" utility-scale Powerpack system at the Hornsdale Power Reserve [(HPR)] in South Australia has yielded more than doubled[sic] the savings to consumers in 2019 than the year prior as it dominates fossil fuel generators on quicker demand response for the grid.
Hornsdale Power Reserve saved consumers AUD116 million ($75.78 million) in 2019, a big jump from AUD40 million ($26.14 million) savings in 2018.
The Hornsdale Power Reserve, owned and operated by French renewable energy producer Neoen, is home to the largest lithium-ion battery energy storage system in the world with a 100 MW/129 MWh. Tesla Powerpack [that] has been playing a significant role in grid stability since its installation in 2017, a function previously dominated by fossil fuel generators that bring energy prices high during system faults [or] planned maintenance.
"Hornsdale has just been the best asset for the state, and for us as well, it's a real success story," head of development at Neoen Australia Garth Heron said in an interview with RenewEconomy. We have shown that these kinds of systems can work. It saves consumers a lot of money, and it's something we should be rolling out right across the market."
[...]The HPR also announced plans to expand its capacity by 50%, boosting it by 50MW/64.5MWh. The project is expected to be completed in the first half of 2020 and will provide stabilizing inertia services critical to the shift to renewable energy in the region, and help push Australia closer to its goal of being net 100% renewable by 2030.
Previously:
Elon Musk: I Can Fix South Australia Power Network in 100 Days or It's Free
Tesla to Build 129 Megawatt-Hours Battery Storage System in Australia
Tesla Delivers on 100 MW Australian Battery Promise
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 10 2017, @05:35AM (14 children)
Not enough though: peak power consumption is around 3000MW [aer.gov.au].
Assuming peak demand, 50% coming from renewables and unfavourable renewables conditions, 900MWh will last less than 1h.
A pity the fed govt (liberal = conservative) decided to boycott SA's renewable plans. Australia is large, the probability of unfavourable conditions for renewable all across Australia is very small.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 10 2017, @05:37AM
Where the 900MWh popped from? TFA speaks about 100MWh.
Ok, you do the math.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday July 10 2017, @06:06AM (12 children)
Given that this is just for the Hornsdale Wind Farm [hornsdalewindfarm.com.au] which, I assume (since it only generates 329MW), is just a small part of South Australia's power generation infrastructure, a 129MW battery storage system would probably be quite useful for storing electricity not used during off-peak periods and then distributed during peak periods.
Or is it necessary for each and every power generation facility in a specific region (in this case, South Australia) to be able to meet peak power requirements for the entire region by itself?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Informative) by choose another one on Monday July 10 2017, @09:18AM (6 children)
To be able to reliably provide base load power you need to be close to 24/7 (preferably with predictable down time windows), for each and every base load generation facility.
If the wind farm generates 329MW (not particularly large for a power station) and the battery stores 129MWh then the facility can manage less than half an hour without wind. That is kind of pathetic for the biggest battery in the world - it just shows how far we've got to go.
For old-tech comparison, Dinorwig pumped storage plant (in Wales / UK) stores 9GWh. Even that is nowhere near being able to meet peak-power requirements or even compensate for when the wind isn't blowing - it is "short term operational reserve" power, used for flattening the tops of demand peaks and providing time for the big gas plants to kick in.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday July 10 2017, @03:28PM (2 children)
And is well worth a visit. When there's a demand spike and they start emptying the reservoir, you really get a feel for how much power a gigawatt is!
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday July 10 2017, @05:28PM (1 child)
Does the UK still have the famous Kettle Peak and the end of EastEnders?
If yes, that's probably a reliable time to visit.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday July 11 2017, @05:03AM
With the growth in online and on-demand television, I doubt the Eastenders peak is as prominent any more. Plus, it's shown in the evening, after visiting hours. A better approach would be to visit during some live televised sporting event in the daytime (Wimbledon tennis finals, Six nations rugby, etc).
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday July 10 2017, @05:58PM (1 child)
To be able to reliably provide base load power you need to be close to 24/7 (preferably with predictable down time windows), for each and every base load generation facility.
Lucy for us there's these things called "wires." They have the amazing ability to connect various areas into a "grid," over a very large area. Wind tends to vary over large areas....
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Tuesday July 11 2017, @06:38PM
> Wind tends to vary over large areas....
Define "large".
Wind variation over areas the size of western europe (for example) is quite highly correlated, see e.g. http://euanmearns.com/wind-blowing-nowhere/ [euanmearns.com]
For larger areas you are looking not at a grid (actually even Europe is not one grid) but at separate grids with sparse interconnectors, which may also be subject to energy supply politics - ask Ukraine about the gas grid...
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday July 10 2017, @07:26PM
I understand the issues, I was responding to Colo's post [soylentnews.org] where he states that the battery system is wholly inadequate to address issues associated with the 3000MW peak load for all of South Australia.
And that would be true. However, given that the contract is for a battery system to store non-peak electricity for a single power generation facility that generates ~10% of total peak power requirements for the entire state, I found Colo's statement to be less than useful given the contract and the cicrumstances.
Having a storage system that can store a little less than half of the power generation capacity for that particular facility is, IMHO, a good start. Presumably, if this works well they will add more of these storage systems at other facilities (and perhaps even at this facility) in South Australia.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Monday July 10 2017, @09:34AM (4 children)
I never said that. And no, that super-battery is not to be used exclusively by Hornsdale
Here's the situation:
SA has a single interstate connection to the "national grid" (which is not that "national" as the name implies, see page 2 of this (PDF warning) [aemo.com.au]).
Most of the times, SA is an energy exporter - last year SA achieved 53% of its own consumption being generated from renewables [abc.net.au]. But sometimes it needs to import - in the few days every year when the wind doesn't blow (the neighbourhood with the Southern Ocean almost guarantees the coastal regions will be mostly windy).
When the falls, SA needs to import a lot through that single interstate connection. In the conditions the thermal powered stations (mainly gas) are private and sometimes play scarcity games [news.com.au] (link is to a NewsCorp/Murdoch owned newspaper, which admits):
This is why SA govt commissioned the battery and also plans to build a state owned gas power station [abc.net.au]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1, Troll) by bob_super on Monday July 10 2017, @05:36PM (3 children)
> This is why SA govt commissioned the battery and also plans to build a state owned gas power station [abc.net.au]
That sound terribly communist of them. What's next? Not selling public transportation to car and tire manufacturers? Not buying then bulldozing water supplies to towns before sending them trucks filled with $10 per liter water?
What kind of coercive governments keep getting in the way of my freedom to establish contracts?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 10 2017, @08:58PM (2 children)
A govt that protects its citizens from predatory pricing by acting as an operator on the market?
If the utility market is controlled by companies putting extreme greed above the duty to provide the utilities, why not?
You don't like the prices the govt has to offer you, feel free to contract your utilities with the other companies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday July 11 2017, @12:51AM (1 child)
I'm pretty sure I can find lots of examples of public utilities competing against private entities, where the lawsuits only stop when the right politician happens to properly defund or hamper the action of the public utility, following a balanced election in which nobody could notice completely unrelated excessive contributions by said competitors...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday July 11 2017, @02:34AM
On short term, lawsuits won't get them anywhere election-wise... the memory of what happened is too recent inside the electorate.
Besides, the Aussies are pretty used with public utilities, state owned (totally or in part) operating on the market. The most recent of it: NBNCo [wikipedia.org].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday July 10 2017, @08:15AM (7 children)
so, all they they have to do is prove it can cover the power needs of one or two towns, and, from now on, these will be installed as a standard part of a solar or wind power generation system.
It will be a giant, working, advertisement for Tesla's batteries.
And one in the eye of the climate-change-deniers, and the invest-in-more-coal-burning-power-station traditionalists*
(*These sets may be congruent)
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday July 10 2017, @10:06AM
I don't think lithium storage will be installed for every solar/wind power generators. Reason: still too expensive and with a limited life.
I reckon this was an exercise in PR for both the SA govt and Elon Musk.
However, there are battery chemistries/technologies that do make sense for renewable storage (where the weight/volume is secondary to the capacity and the low cost of operation):
- sodium/sulphur batteries [wikipedia.org]
- flow batteries [wikipedia.org]
Heck, I reckon that reducing Al2O3 to Al (storage) and electrochemical corrosion of Al to Al(OH)3 (energy generation) may prove a good enough "energy storage" (and keep an aluminium plant operational)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @10:22AM (2 children)
I wonder why the nuclear lobby does not make more noise about climate change. After all, nuclear power is clearly climate friendly. And it is certainly able to provide base load.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday July 10 2017, @10:33AM (1 child)
Events like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, on one hand, and the coal lobby on the other.
Lots of people campaign for thorium reactors (something goes wrong, they shut down, rather than go "boom"), but the military-types love DU and other "nuclear" weapons, so it is hard to get investment when there will be no "secondary sale" of waste* material.
*not completely convinced some nuclear power stations aren't *primarily* there for the supposed "by-products"
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by WalksOnDirt on Monday July 10 2017, @03:11PM
The way most power plants operate is useless for making bombs. The plutonium in the waste is contaminated with bad isotopes that ruin its usefulness as explosives. If you cycle the fuel through quickly you can produce plutonium for bombs, but it's easier if the reactor is designed for that. Of course, if all you have are commercial reactors you can do it, but the major powers don't bother.
If all you want is depleted uranium you can just use natural uranium instead. There's nothing to be gained by producing depleted uranium if you don't have a use for enriched uranium.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by choose another one on Monday July 10 2017, @10:58AM (2 children)
Talking in "towns" is a bit pointless - not exactly a standardised measure of capacity. The minute a town decides to have, say, a steel plant or an aluminium smelter the required power changes dramatically.
Better to talk in terms of how many hours of storage capacity vs. generation capacity. For example, the Gemasolar plant in Spain is usually quoted as storing 16hrs at it's normal power output - that is the kind of storage you need to match solar daily variation (it still won't match seasonal variation, but then you could, say, do all your nuke plant maintenance in summer to start to balance that out, as long as you have a reliably sunny summer, which Spain does). Gemasolar has run 24/7 for 36 days straight - that is the kind of reliability you want from base load power gen. It can only do it in summer though.
For wind, I reckon you need several days storage to cope with natural variability - and geographic dispersion isn't a substitute as shown in example europe-wide data here: http://euanmearns.com/wind-blowing-nowhere/ [euanmearns.com]
We are nowhere near those levels of storage with current battery tech, but progress is being made, maybe we will get there. Until then it's diesel gen sets keeping the lights on, to the tune of several GW of reserve capacity in the UK alone. Since the diesel plants are now small and distributed, less visible than the wind turbines (actually form the outside look a lot like teslas battery is supposed to), few people are noticing the real cost of keeping the lights on with renewables. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/06/uk-energy-bill-subsidies-driving-boom-in-polluting-diesel-farms [theguardian.com]
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday July 10 2017, @11:19AM (1 child)
Distribution also works to prevent/militate terrorist or foreign-power threats; taking out thousands of small-scale generators is far harder than taking out one or two coal (or nuclear) power stations, or the high voltage transmission lines.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday July 10 2017, @02:42PM
They have been experimenting with this concept and it's called microgrids. The idea is to combine localized renewables such as rooftop solar and smaller wind turbines with batteries on local medium voltage circuits. Instead of a large tree like structure with generation and storage at the trunk, you distribute the storage over the smaller branches and balance it out with local renewables. The idea is a branch can survive a feeder fault by letting the storage take over allowing the local renewables to continue operation helping to keep the microgrid alive long enough to fix the fault.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @08:40PM
The purpose of these batteries seems to be avoiding load on fossil fuel plants by shifting excess renewable production in time. Is there an estimate for how much CO2 emission the batteries will prevent?