Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

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

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

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

Re: Ideas on more efficient energy storage?

mike90045,

Sadly, your sig rings true.

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.

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

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 ...

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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)