Apparently, such a system would cost well over the current cost of the property, weigh several dozen tons, take up even more space than I thought, AND make as much noise as legally allowed (that’s <65 dB per module, of which there would be a few dozens)

I’m annoyed that this isn’t usually part of the discussion and I’m even more convinced that grid scale batteries are not viable as a commercial service

… which kind of validates my thinking that “virtual battery” services aren’t batteries in any technical capacity

What gives? Where am I wrong?

#GridBattery #EnergyTransition #ElectricityMarket #VirtualBattery

@smallsolar if I’m reading this correctly (not my area), water or iron are great at holding heat? Followed by earth

[edit] NB the notations are in French in the link, so a comma in a number means units and decimals, not thousands

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacit%C3%A9_thermique_volumique

A few quick calculations that I’m probably getting wrong

handling summer spikes

1500 kWh in a summer month according to the simulations above, that’s 50 kWh per day

If I wanted to ensure that all my production went to the grid, including on the days that every other solar panel in the country is also producing while no one is using much energy, and as a result the grid isn’t accepting input in the afternoon

… then the battery capacity that I’d need would be of the order of 50 kWh, so that I could offload at night (and assuming that few people did the same)

handling winter spikes

Similarly, if I wanted to be fully autonomous by using only my own energy, stored in the summer for discharge in the winter

… Then I’d need hundreds of kWh of battery capacity, probably 3000 kWh at least, which sounds positively stupid

And I’d run into a lot of different issues:

• space, volume, weight (probably comparable to that of the house itself)
• regulatory & safety concerns, fire prevention
• maintenance, servicing contractors
• cost (probably on par with the entire property, plus ongoing)

conclusions

This is stupid and I don’t understand how grid-scale batteries are a business model that makes sense

@collectifission my only issue with nuclear is that I’ve been told it needs to work at full power all the time (except maintenance cycles), which doesn’t alleviate my worry about wildly changing seasonal needs

Especially as we are electrifying heating

For example my own consumption in the warm season is below 10 kWh per day, but above 100 kWh per day in the winter.

@modulux maintenance cycles are only an issue as long as you only have a handful of sites; but once you have dozens or hundreds, they even out?

@collectifission