Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

icarus · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

Marc,

To play the contrarian again, I think the consequences of a large number of cars plugged into the grid is absolutely predictable, within a very small percentage over time. ThEe fact is most cars go EXACTLY the same place at the same time on the same days. Home-work-grocery store-school pick up-home etc. Detailing the habits of drivers is comparatively easy in that regard. Yes you go to the mall today which puts you off pattern, but in and of itself, that is a pattern. Your neighbour went yesterday, your other neighbour will go tomorrow.

By being plugged in 23/7 the utility could buy and sell as needed with predictable outcomes. It isn't just a matter of 20 million cars plugging in to charge at 5 pm! The fact that they have been plugged in 23 hours of this day, allows tremendous flexibility in grid management. You just need a grid (and cars) smart enough to do it!.

T

Cariboocoot · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

Tony,

It's not my POV. Just giving the general feeling of the utility companies regarding individualized power production/storage. You could say they're control freaks.

When you think about it, grid management is much like off-grid management times several million. We can design an off-grid set-up which will deliver "X" kWhrs/day. The problem is always; what if the sun doesn't shine or there's extra consumption for some reason? We have to bring the generator on-line to make up the difference. Trouble for the utilities is; they can't just go pull the rope on the Honda and make up the loss. Bit more difficult getting several million megawatts up and running.

And we can more easily predict our individual usage and watch the weather conditions.

icarus · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

Marc,

The difference however is that if the sun doesn't shine in Williams Lake, it might be shining in Lethbridge. (Elko NV and Salt Lake, or Boston and D.C) Make the area big enough and the predicability goes up. You can't predict when your neighbour will turn on the coffee pot tomorrow, but BC hydro knows that at 7 am the load spikes to Xmw every day.

Load management is fairly easy, up to the point of peak loads. (This is an opine from someone who has no idea what I am talking about,, just to fully disclose!) I suspect that within a few percentage points (exceptional weather excepted) the utility can predict very accurately what the load will be when. My entire point is that plug in cars can have a huge benefit on the ability of the grid to absorb the last light bulb, the one that is turned on over the predicted model.

As it stands now, the utility has to have some headroom all the time, for some unanticipated loads. This idle capacity is the least efficient and therefore the most polluting, since it's emissions are going for no use at all. Plugging in a couple of million LI batteries 23/7 can reduce this idle capacity significantly.

T

Cariboocoot · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

For the utility, having those batteries entirely under their control is preferable. As yet it doesn't seem to be economical for them.

As for the predictability factor, according to the guy that writes the software every time they think they've got a handle on it something goes wrong. Even though they know in advance when a municipality is going to add a new sub division full of houses, it's still a headache to figure out where those megawatts are going to come from. The program actually accumulates data and builds a database of usage patterns, including weather trends and forecasts.

Personally I'm inclined to agree with you. More localized generation and storage would also help reduce transmission losses and the potential for wide-area blackouts. But those who run the companies are set in their ways and are more concerned about maximum profits with minimum expense. One of the biggest problems in the industry is the reluctance to upgrade and replace aging conventional infrastructure. You can just imagine what they think about adding a bunch of new, 'unproven' battery storage systems.

It's all about mindset.

Kamala · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

Recognizing that the OP was about "efficient storage," I'm going to throw this in anyway...

Seems to me, that hydro (gravity) is the most efficient potential energy currently available. The motive material (water) is needed for other things, sure. But it's pretty abundant. And storing adequate volumes does change the landscape and environment (for better or worse?) Covering the desert with PV would also alter landscapes/environments. I have no problem with either.

I've been out of touch... but whatever became of the idea to beam power from orbital PV arrays to earth stations via microwaves?

BIG POINT...
Conservation. The US economy (such as it is

) seems to have moved more to service/info functions. Many workers could/should be allowed to "telecommute." The energy and time wasted to move people daily from their computers at home to their computers at works is ridiculous. And energy is energy. PV or oil. But bosses want to see people in chairs.

And some of this waste is in terms of the rather unquantifiable human creative energy. Time lost/stress added. What could we do with more time and less stress? To say nothing of the extra $100/wk spent on gas??!!

I could go on... but

mike95490 · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

Kamala wrote: »

... Many workers could/should be allowed to "telecommute." The energy and time wasted to move people daily from their computers at home to their computers at works is ridiculous. ...

Ah the days of telecommuting from home. Dashed to bits by our new Corporate Overlords. We (TRW Space Systems) had a viable, secure, telecommute scheme, via VPN and RSA token. But now, the new bosses want to see happy shiny faces in the seats in the cube farm. (Yes, they are remodeling buildings to cube farms again). And hopes of telecommute fade, as you must log in from a company laptop. And give up your desk phone for a softphone. And use 2 tokens and a crypto card. And.... And.... And.....

So now I do all my work, slowly at work. No high speed simulations on a REAL computer (like I have at home), it's snails pace on a laptop. And I waste time commuting. I used to be able to do a couple of days a month, at home.. (no lab at home for building the simulations in real life).

Kamala · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

mike90045,

Sadly, your sig rings true.

stephendv · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

The dutch were working on the idea of pumped hydro a while back, don't think anything has come of it.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea//news/article/2007/09/dutch-companies-investigate-offshore-energy-storage-system-49961

hillbilly · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

Kamala wrote: »

Recognizing that the OP was about "efficient storage," I'm going to throw this in anyway...

Seems to me, that hydro (gravity) is the most efficient potential energy currently available. The motive material (water) is needed for other things, sure. But it's pretty abundant. And storing adequate volumes does change the landscape and environment (for better or worse?) Covering the desert with PV would also alter landscapes/environments. I have no problem with either.

Kamala, without getting into the environmental or political arguments about hydro vs other forms of energy production I do agree that it does provide us with a lot of potential energy. I would strongly disagree with the comment about it being in abundance; while some areas may have plenty of water for all needs, many areas do not, and as population continues to grow we will have a lot more demand for that water AND power. Take a look at photos of lake powell, and lake mead for an idea of what water shortages we may be dealing with in the coming decades.
There is also the option for more dams and reservoirs to increase potential storage, but in addition to environmental concerns there's also the issue that so far most dams (all?) here in the U.S. have been financial losses hugely subsidized by tax payers to keep them running. My point is not to disagree with your assertion that hydro power is a great source of energy, but just that currently our dams are far from perfect energy providers and the quantities of energy are limited. I do wonder how much more efficient our existing dams would be if more of them had the option of storing the energy from all water that they need to release for all those "other purposes" (this is a very substantial quantity in some cases).

tallgirl · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

The key difference between V2G and Battery backed systems as "standby power" are --

1). No one drives their home. Many of these V2G plans assume some percentage of cars are parked and plugged in, yet that assumes these cars are parked, plugged in, and well charged. Several dubious assumptions.

2). EVs do NOT have batteries of the capacities used in reasonable sized homes. If my GVFX3648's could be "ordered" to sell on command, I could output significantly more power, and for a significantly longer time, than most cars could even pretend to produce. And then I'm not going to want to drive my house.

3). EVs are already going to produce problems for the grid. Having some large number of EVs run down during a call for emergency power isn't going to get rid of the need to recharge them all. Real soon now. Which could be enough of a demand on the grid to produce ... another emergency event.

4). Even if EVs could be used (which I don't believe they can), the real need is for "Balancing Energy" -- a place to put a surplus, and a place to get a deficit -- as we move towards sources that aren't using phase locking to control the throttle of a turbine. "Balancing Energy" requires enough spare uncharged capacity that EVs would have to be left partially charged in order to be useful.

V2G is a scam. It's a big honkering scam. If the above explanation isn't good enough, there's not a lot I can do to help make it clearer.

tallgirl · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

icarus wrote: »

Load management is fairly easy, up to the point of peak loads. (This is an opine from someone who has no idea what I am talking about,, just to fully disclose!) I suspect that within a few percentage points (exceptional weather excepted) the utility can predict very accurately what the load will be when. My entire point is that plug in cars can have a huge benefit on the ability of the grid to absorb the last light bulb, the one that is turned on over the predicted model.

The problem isn't just that the utility has to supply power to the last lightbulb, it's that when the last light bulb is turned off, it has to have a place to store the surplus power until the generators adjust and produce less.

The grid MUST, at all times, be perfectly balanced for production and consumption. Turn on a light bulb, some car provides power until the generators catch up, the car recharges, generator has to catch up even more, light bulb and car charger turns off ... where does that power from the generator have to go? It can't just be "turned off" -- the turbine will over speed and blow itself up.

If anyone has ideas (I have plenty -- over 2 dozen are at the patent office right now), feel free to contact me. I guaranty strict confidentiality and can help you with the provisional patent filing process. But if you idea can't handle up and down regulation (loads turning on AND off), no one is going to want it and you might as well save the $220 small entity provisional application filing fee.

mike95490 · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

tallgirl wrote: »

The key difference between V2G and Battery backed systems as "standby power" are --

1). No one drives their home. Many of these V2G plans assume some percentage of cars are parked and plugged in, yet that assumes these cars are parked, plugged in, and well charged. Several dubious assumptions.

2). EVs do NOT have batteries of the capacities used in reasonable sized homes. If my GVFX3648's could be "ordered" to sell on command, I could output significantly more power, and for a significantly longer time, than most cars could even pretend to produce. And then I'm not going to want to drive my house.

3). EVs are already going to produce problems for the grid. Having some large number of EVs run down during a call for emergency power isn't going to get rid of the need to recharge them all. Real soon now. Which could be enough of a demand on the grid to produce ... another emergency event.

4). Even if EVs could be used (which I don't believe they can), the real need is for "Balancing Energy" -- a place to put a surplus, and a place to get a deficit -- as we move towards sources that aren't using phase locking to control the throttle of a turbine. "Balancing Energy" requires enough spare uncharged capacity that EVs would have to be left partially charged in order to be useful.

V2G is a scam. It's a big honkering scam. If the above explanation isn't good enough, there's not a lot I can do to help make it clearer.

The problem is that some, assume the V2G, will be used as a daily stopgap. It is best used as a 3x a year emergency power equalizer, for 10 or 15 minutes, till replacement power can be spun up, or other loads shut down. Not to completely drain the battery, and when when the crisis passes, it recharges.
Or we can continue to assume there will be sporadic, 1/4 country wide outages, as we've had before.
When 97% of the hardware exists, parked 12/7, it's silly not to take advantage of it. The smart grid will control your charger, dishwasher, and other appliances, and the SPF http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG819.pdf will enforce it.

icarus · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

TallGirl,

Not to get into a p***ing contest, your opinion is clear, and I indeed respect that, but it is (as spelled out) your opinion. Just as I have cited NO technical/peer reviewed studies to support my opinion, you have provided none to support your own.

I am not contending that EVs are going to serve as a huge untapped power source for the grid. What I am suggesting, is that EVs could serve as a huge, d non central battery bank that can serve multiple purposes. The first of course is powering transport. The second is providing a buffer against peak spikes by selling power back to the grid. Third is to use 24/7 wind/solar/tidal generating capacity that my otherwise go to waste. Fourth , EVs, plugged into the grid can even out the load over a 24 hour day, using potential surplus night time capacity to charge, but adding to peak daytime capacity in some small measure.

To counter your points:

"1). No one drives their home. Many of these V2G plans assume some percentage of cars are parked and plugged in, yet that assumes these cars are parked, plugged in, and well charged. Several dubious assumptions."

I don't know what you are trying to say here. It is pretty clear, looking at any given parking lot that most cars are parked more than they are driven, my guess would be ~23/7. A smart infrastructure such that these cars can be plugged in and charging/selling at any time is not that hard to imagine. I could even imagine a wireless transfer of power, using transformer technology so that all you had to do was park in a designated slot, and the car charges. (My wild ass dream, nothing to substantiate it) Even if you had to physically plug it in, it isn't a big deal to imagine. Some cars will be more charged than others, but with some predictable average SOC.

"2). EVs do NOT have batteries of the capacities used in reasonable sized homes. If my GVFX3648's could be "ordered" to sell on command, I could output significantly more power, and for a significantly longer time, than most cars could even pretend to produce. And then I'm not going to want to drive my house."

I am not arguing that an EV has a big enough battery to "power a house". My point is that the sheer number or potential EVs represents a much bigger battery net/net than probably all the battery based Pv systems on line now. Remember we build ~15 million cars per year. I can see a time when ~1/2 of them are plug ins.

"
3). EVs are already going to produce problems for the grid. Having some large number of EVs run down during a call for emergency power isn't going to get rid of the need to recharge them all. Real soon now. Which could be enough of a demand on the grid to produce ... another emergency event."

Clearly, as we move toward EVs there is going to be greater demand on the grid. I understand that nothing is free. On the other hand, the net energy required to power transportation from EV rather than Internal combustion engines is net/net way less, just due to the efficiency of electric motors vs ICEs. The net reduction of fuel use and carbon emissions has the potential to be very significant. Add it some added efficiency to the grid by using EVs as energy sources for the grid further reduce fuel use and emissions .

"Even if EVs could be used (which I don't believe they can), the real need is for "Balancing Energy" -- a place to put a surplus, and a place to get a deficit -- as we move towards sources that aren't using phase locking to control the throttle of a turbine. "Balancing Energy" requires enough spare uncharged capacity that EVs would have to be left partially charged in order to be useful."

Wouldn't it be intuitive, that at any given time a predictable (reasonably) number of AHs of batteries need to be charge/are charging/are fully charged? I'm not talking about huge percentages of grid power, merely a few percentages max,, but those few percentages are potentially very big, and very beneficial.

"V2G is a scam. It's a big honkering scam. If the above explanation isn't good enough, there's not a lot I can do to help make it clearer."

To assert that it is a scam, implies that someone is going to make a pot of money at the expense of some unsuspecting dupe. Please explain who stands to benefit from this "scam" and how?

Icarus

AntronX · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

tallgirl wrote: »

...light bulb and car charger turns off ... where does that power from the generator have to go? It can't just be "turned off" -- the turbine will over speed and blow itself up.

You are not serious.

Solar Guppy · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

Power plants adjust the flow or vents worst case the steam instead of spinning turbine for load adjustments.

This is actually amusing reading these posts ...

icarus · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

SG, I'm curious to know why you are amused? Personally, I think I present a well though our argument, albiet one that is mostly off the top of my head. I am curios to hear WHY folks think it won't work rather than just hearing that it won't.

To quote your own post #24
"So, what is the motive for someone to give 4K of value to the power company and cut the effective life in half for there new EV? Yah, they will sign up in droves for this."

You assume that you would be "giving up 4K of value to the power company". There is no evidence (either to support or rebut) your assertion that by doing this, one would "give up X value". Second, you would in part, be giving value to the power company, but more importantly, you would get some (hopefully) greater value yourself. Most utilities know that it is cheaper to insulate houses than it is to add generating capacity for example. If they can access X mw of standby power cheaper than building it themselves, they will potentially offer a good deal to EV owners.

Finally, no one yet knows what the amortized cost of millions of EV batteries are likely to be. Additionally, no one has any real sense of what kind of real world life span they are likely to have. One of the urban myths about the Prius is that "the battery costs $4000 and you have to replace it every 100k miles" Prius batteries are ~1/3 that cost, and there have been very few battery failures. There are many, well documented cases of batteries ( and cars) going in excess of 500,000km (~350k miles) in taxi service in Vancouver and Toronto. (Taxi service is not easy service for any vehicle).

So if you drive your car ~200k miles, you get a $X cheaper power because you are willing to sell back, and the battery dies sooner, maybe it is a good deal,, may not, but to dismiss out of hand is,,,,

I agree with your Re: hydrogen. I also think that bio-fuels are a crock as well.

Idle spinning or venting steam, is still waste. The point of course is to maximize efficiency and minimize waste.

Icarus

tallgirl · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

AntronX wrote: »

You are not serious.

I'm extremely serious. All rotating masses in a grid interconnect region are maintained in phase lock by the physics of rotating masses and electric generation. When the load on the grid falls, the turbines convert the excess power into increased angular momentum. Which is to say, they "speed up". Allowed to continue unchecked, they will exceed the upper frequency range (not all that far north of 60Hz) and need to be taken off-line -- along with ALL of their production capacity. The opposite, but worse, happens when load rises or generation falls -- angular momentum is converted into electricity and the turbines slow down. If they fall below their minimum frequency, they disconnect, take their production with them, and matters only get worse.

The grid is kept in balance by two things -- physics (conservation of angular momentum) and load-following generators. Block generation can be scheduled for large forecast changes, but tweaking the last few megawatts up and down is a bit harder -- and it has to be done and it can't just be ignored.

tallgirl · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

mike90045 wrote: »

The problem is that some, assume the V2G, will be used as a daily stopgap. It is best used as a 3x a year emergency power equalizer, for 10 or 15 minutes, till replacement power can be spun up, or other loads shut down. Not to completely drain the battery, and when when the crisis passes, it recharges.
Or we can continue to assume there will be sporadic, 1/4 country wide outages, as we've had before.
When 97% of the hardware exists, parked 12/7, it's silly not to take advantage of it. The smart grid will control your charger, dishwasher, and other appliances, and the SPF http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG819.pdf will enforce it.

Demand Response ("DR") solutions well in excess of 100% deployment of V2G are already being developed. In ERCOT, my recollection is that DR is being certified as Spinning Reserves right now -- they call it "Responsive Reserves" and right now (6:58pm, CST, 12/10 ...) there are 3,530MW of "Responsive Reserves" on-line. So ... not sure what market there would be for cars with 3,530MW of what V2G would be offering in place right now.

But let's assume you're right -- people are going to do this. The current clearing price for balancing energy (15 minute ahead -- 7:00pm right-now-time) is $47.28 per megawatt-hour. Or, $0.04728 per kilowatt-hour. For 15 minutes, three times a year, a car is going to do something it will be paid ... $0.01 each time, maybe ... for? Oh, and V2G is going to have to compete against the 3,530MW that's already deployed right here, right now. This makes sense, how?

Finally, because I'm not done yet debunking this scam -- the entire requirement for "Spinning Reserves" is on the order of Largest Single Contingency. In Texas, our biggest generator is a 2,600MW nuclear plant out around Houston. That's the worst case scenario, more or less -- it drops off the grid, we need 2,600MW real soon. The =total= spinning reserves in ERCOT, right-now-time, is 5,299MW. Let's assume each car can output what it can input. Furthermore, lets assume (very flawed assumption -- I can explain why in another post) that each car is connected to a 20A 240VAC outlet. 20 * 240 = 4.8KW. 5,299MW / 4.8KW per car = 1.1 million cars. That's it -- in the entire state of Texas, only 1.1 million cars at a time can participate because that's all the need for ALL spinning reserves, in the entire ERCOT interconnect. But wait -- there are already 3,530MW of "Responsive reserves", which means instead of 5,299MW divided by 4.8KW per car, it's 370,000 cars. In other words, it isn't even going to be 10% of all the cars in Texas. It might be 5%, and if people start wanting it even if it makes no financial sense (see previous), the price is going to collapse and then it's worthless anyway.

Like I said -- it's a big honkering scam.

And yes, I've reviewed several dozen patents related to this, as well as written several dozen of my own (along with my co-inventors). It's a junk idea and I'd go through this explanation every time one of my co-inventors would come up with Yet Another Bad V2G Idea.

AntronX · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

I was referring to turbine blowing up part.

Anyways. I would not call V2G a scam. It's a pretty cool feature. Most important feature is being able to trottle charging current of the electic car. Most people will just leave their chargers at highest rate setting, without understanding the impact to the grid.

Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) is another cool feature. If your EV is stranded somewhere with dead battery, someone can plug you in to their own EV and give you a boost.

tallgirl · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

AntronX wrote: »

I was referring to turbine blowing up part.

Oh, I was being a drama queen. Over-frequency isn't nearly as bad as under-frequency. Both can cause damage if left completely alone, but over-frequency is self-correcting while under-frequency makes things worse.

And I'm not saying having inverters in cars is a bad idea -- V2V is =definitely= a good idea and I think V2V will be one of those "mandatory" features within the first few years of a large scale commercially successful vehicle rolling out.

As for vehicle "smart chargers" they already exist. I forget how many patents that have been =issued= in that field I reviewed, to say nothing of published applications. My team (about 6 of us) were frantically inventing over / under / around all the charging patents we could find. I personally think we came up with some revolutionary enhancements to the existing art (none of which I can tell you about) that will prevent everyone from coming home at 6pm and plugging in their chargers and melting the 15KVA poll pig in front of their house (keep that in mind -- a lot of those transformers are rated at 15KVA). That's the real risk, not trashing the grid. Because if you have a yuppy neighborhood and too many people in that yuppy neighborhood by EVs, there could be a dead poll pig as a result.

But V2G is still a miserable, horrible, dumb idea.

icarus · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

Julie,

You are going to have to do better to convince me that it is a miserable, horrible dumb idea!

"Finally, because I'm not done yet debunking this scam -- the entire requirement for "Spinning Reserves" is on the order of Largest Single Contingency. In Texas, our biggest generator is a 2,600MW nuclear plant out around Houston. That's the worst case scenario, more or less -- it drops off the grid, we need 2,600MW real soon. The =total= spinning reserves in ERCOT, right-now-time, is 5,299MW. Let's assume each car can output what it can input. Furthermore, lets assume (very flawed assumption -- I can explain why in another post) that each car is connected to a 20A 240VAC outlet. 20 * 240 = 4.8KW. 5,299MW / 4.8KW per car = 1.1 million cars. That's it -- in the entire state of Texas, only 1.1 million cars at a time can participate because that's all the need for ALL spinning reserves, in the entire ERCOT interconnect. But wait -- there are already 3,530MW of "Responsive reserves", which means instead of 5,299MW divided by 4.8KW per car, it's 370,000 cars. In other words, it isn't even going to be 10% of all the cars in Texas. It might be 5%, and if people start wanting it even if it makes no financial sense (see previous), the price is going to collapse and then it's worthless anyway."

In this scenario, you are stuck on the world as it is,,,now. 37,000 cars today might not seem like much, but what happens if the decimal point changes, utilities have a significantly larger "battery bank" to draw from initially? Does it no seem to follow that more cars(batteries) = more predicability in how you can buy/sell from these cars?

Using your own logic

"The grid is kept in balance by two things -- physics (conservation of angular momentum) and load-following generators. Block generation can be scheduled for large forecast changes, but tweaking the last few megawatts up and down is a bit harder -- and it has to be done and it can't just be ignored."

Agreeing that load balance is essential to the grid, and agreeing that it is the last few MWs (read percentage) are the hardest to tweek, once again, doesn't it seem logical that using batteries in car that might otherwise just be sitting make sense?

Icarus

PS Personally, I would find your writing much easier to read, follow and understand if you were to use fewer abbreviations, acronyms etc. There is an element of laymen in many of us.

tallgirl · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

Icarus,

If there are more cars, it won't matter because the amount of power needed to balance the system is already well understood. "More cars" will make the financial incentive worse -- too much supply chasing too little demand, thereby depressing the value of the service. The current spinning reserves (changes minute by minute) are 5,5527MW -- change 37,000 cars to 370,000 cars and all of that 5,527MW can be covered by each car producing -- on average -- 14KW. Totally impossible, of course. But subtract the Demand Response reserves (loads that have agreed to be curtailed on 15 minutes response) and that drops to (5527 - 3178) / 370,000 = 6.3KW. Which is getting to a point where if you move that decimal point much more, there would be enough supply to completely displace fossil generation. At that point -- too much supply, too little demand, prices collapse even if it makes more "logical sense".

The problem is that with the "Smart Grid", the amount of Demand Response reserves is only going to go up and they don't have cycle losses -- it doesn't "wear out" my fridge or air conditioner to leave it off for 15 minutes, then turn it back on. But with V2G, those extra cycles =will= reduce the life of the battery. And because it doesn't increase the wear-and-tear on my appliances to be paused for 15 minutes (that I might not even notice), I can "sell" allowing the utility to manage my appliances more cheaply than you can "sell" allowing the utility to discharge your battery.

Adding to the bogosity of V2G is that if you DO get dispatched and have to discharge your car battery, you now have to recharge it -- and if you planned on using it right away you could be out of luck and have to wait for the battery to be recharged. Where as, my fridge is still cold, my house is still reasonably cool, my clothes in the dryer will just be delayed 15 minutes.

Walk through the different scenarios, then remember -- there is a lot more "other" load than there every will be cars plugged into parking garages. And on top of that, we have Demand Response today, we don't have V2G today.

---
Jargon Glossary

"Demand Response" -- a load which has agreed to be reduced on 15 minutes notice from the utility. Demand Response loads are being used as a form of reserve power in some regions because a reduction in demand is identical to an increase in production.

"Responsive Reserves" -- The name for Demand Response loads coined by ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

"Grid Interconnect" -- A part of the country where all of the AC distribution lines are connected together. The frequency of the entire interconnect is identical throughout.

"ERCOT" -- The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the entity which is responsible for insuring that the electric grid in most of Texas functions properly. Their website is http://www.ercot.org/

"Balancing Energy" -- The power which must be supplied when loads exceed generation, or removed when generation exceeds loads. Balancing energy is typically provided by very responsive generators, such as natural gas or hydroelectric. Large thermal generators, such as coal and nuclear plants, cannot rapidly varying their output.

icarus · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

I believe we will have to agree to disagree on this one and see what happens in the next ten years.

T

newenergy · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

stephendv wrote: »

The dutch were working on the idea of pumped hydro a while back, don't think anything has come of it.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea//news/article/2007/09/dutch-companies-investigate-offshore-energy-storage-system-49961

Los Angeles has a pumped storage hydro facility. They pump water from Castaic lake to Pyramid lake during the night and use it to generate power during the day. I don't want to quote the number, but it's very efficient and at least in SoCal where you can drop 8,000 feet over a short distance right next to a huge population there's plenty of room for more.

mike95490 · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

newenergy wrote: »

Los Angeles has a pumped storage hydro facility. They pump water from Castaic lake to Pyramid lake during the night and use it to generate power during the day. I don't want to quote the number, but it's very efficient and at least in SoCal where you can drop 8,000 feet over a short distance right next to a huge population there's plenty of room for more.

Pumped hydro is roughly 70 - 85% efficient. Good, but not very good.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaver_Lake is another one in the chain of hydro re-gen projects

dwh · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

newenergy wrote: »

Los Angeles has a pumped storage hydro facility. They pump water from Castaic lake to Pyramid lake during the night and use it to generate power during the day. I don't want to quote the number, but it's very efficient and at least in SoCal where you can drop 8,000 feet over a short distance right next to a huge population there's plenty of room for more.

Hey, don't forget Piru:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Piru

(my personal favorite of the three for camping and fishing)

wild01 · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

whats wrong with our current combined cycle peaker unit configuration? you run a hrsg (Heat recovery steam gen)on the exhaust to run a steam turbine and run the gas turbine on nat gas or diesel. on demand no storage (there's a reason we use it, it works) meanwhile add a solar boiler to all the coal powered steam plants out there (it's the steam that has to be continuous not the fuel source)

btw just to correct a few misnomers i've seem large scale steam is never turned off b/c of demand-we design our steam plants to always be at (or near) maximum capacity and supply the high use surges through peaker units and hydros. the reason for this has a lot to do with thermal expansion of the steam turbines and maintenance issues with stopping and starting. basically all large steam turbines are designed to be continuous run units, if you shut it off you rebuild it. yes in an emergency shutdown you can vent steam and slam the overspeed controlls but you aren't starting back up without some serious work.

Pumped hydro does offer some advantages and the water can still be used for recreation. all hydros can be spun up/down at a moments notice.

the important thing to remember when dealing with power is this gas turbines are relatively clean but coal based steam by design is always running. Gas is only used to fill in the highs. this will never change it would just cost to much. so the solution needs to be to find a way to alternatively fuel the coal burners for at least part of their day. this can be done using current geothermal or solar boilers.

v2e could work but it will NEVER get to the scale we truely need. a standard coal burner single turbine plant puts out 650-1000mw constantly 1 501f3 siemens turbine can put out 300mw on demand as in NOW there are hundreds of these turbines blanketing our nation.

I was just rebuilding a turbine at the pge beaver plant in Clatskanie, OR thats a 7 turbine combined cycle plant (6 gas 1 steam running off the hrsg) they are rated i believe at 500mw (all numbers aprox going on memory here) at full load they can run on nat gas or diesel, and at full load the plant consumes 32000gpm of fuel (I assume this was a diesel number as nat gas is rarely measured in gal) my point here is this at those levels the number of vehicles plugged in just to replace 1 peaker plant will never happen.

We have current technology available to us that can significantly reduce our use of fossil fuels but trying to chase all these "new" unproven technologies is never going to fix the underlying problem-we have to refuel our coal burners
they are the backbone of our grid
they never shut off
they are our dirty little secret

btw just in case you didn't know/have never thought about it. when solar farms produce, it's never the coal burners that shut off, when wind farms spin up, it's never the coal burners that shut down. coal power is our grid's base line, every other technology besides nuke is just to fill in the gaps. until we start refueling the boilers at our coal plants every other technology we add will just cover "peak use"

sorry for the long rant, but I get tired of hearing tired old arguments from people who have never set foot in a power plant.

AntronX · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

wild01 wrote: »

sorry for the long rant, but I get tired of hearing tired old arguments from people who have never set foot in a power plant.

Hi, thanks for commenting.

How about coal gasification combined cycle. How much more efficient it is than pulverized coal steam plant? Does gasification process take a lot of energy? How about converting existing coal plant to natural gas turbines with waste heat providing steam to existing old steam turbine? Would it make sense to convert pulverized coal burners to gasifiers? I want to know which technology provides most CO2 reduction per Dollar invested.

wild01 · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

AntronX wrote: »

Hi, thanks for commenting.

How about coal gasification combined cycle. How much more efficient it is than pulverized coal steam plant? Does gasification process take a lot of energy? How about converting existing coal plant to natural gas turbines with waste heat providing steam to existing old steam turbine? Would it make sense to convert pulverized coal burners to gasifiers? I want to know which technology provides most CO2 reduction per Dollar invested.

hmmm where to start... first coal gas coal gas production produces the same amount of co2 as burning coal, the basic thought is that this gas could be captured and pumped into the ground, my thought about this is that if this was feasible we would be doing it with the gasses coming out of the smoke stack already. so in the long run coal gas produces just as much co2 as coal. Gassification is as I understand an exothermic reaction, meaning it produces energy, doesn't use it. this is not my field of expertise though so I could be off a little.

now hrsg running of the current generators would not work, for 1 simple reason, you would have to have far more gas turbines than would be feasible, as an example I rebuilt a 501f3 last spring the whole plant was rated at 500mw of that 50mw was the steam turbine running on recovered heat. now 10% increase in efficiency on the gas turbine is great but to run a 700mw steam turbine you would have to be running 7000mw of gas turbines.

converting to gas fired boilers would reduce our co2 footprint by 3/4 however we don't have enough methane for that to be feasible, and there are regulations preventing gas conversion for that reason. if we could find a way to collect the naturally forming methane out of the gulf south of florida that would be a nice start(especially since unburned methane has 20x the carbon footprint of co2)

the thing to remember is that coal is cheap so in order to replace/reduce it's use we need to think free!
that's why I'm touting solar boiler addons. the steam supply needs to be continuous, so during daylight hours run the boilers on sun light, and use coal as a backup and at night, right off the bat we reduce coal use by 1/3 and if you add in geothermal taps to all the plants that are situated near geothermal sources probably 1/2 or more.

as far as efficiency goes we are pretty near as efficient as we can get, they say now that most plant owners are willing to spend $100m for a 1% efficiency increase, and we've already done all the easy things that could be done(that's why we use pulverizers on the coal so that every possible bit of it burns) we've closed the tolerances on the turbines down almost to the point of insanity(in some turbines at full temp the turbine blade tips clear the case by .010 inches while spinning at 3600 rpm@30feet in diameter) we actually run the low pressure turbines not on steam pressure but on the vacuum created by the steam collapsing back into a liquid. there is so little friction on the shaft that a 120ton shaft can be turned by hand when the oil is pumping to the bearings (no load of course)

Ralph Day · December 2009

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

It's great to hear from someone with hands-on, head-in-the-plant experience on this topic. Sometimes our heads are somewhere else and we can't/don't see what reality is, but what we'd like it to be.

Doesn't do a lot for an optimistic look at the future though, and GWB said America was an oil junkie...also a coal junkie (and junk food junkie, but that's another topic)

Ralph

Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

Comments

Categories