The future of energy generation and storage

[Value Collector]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

There's always a catch isn't there. I've extracted this list of "materials used for commercially available cells" from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Materials_of_commercial_cells

Positive electrode
Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide ("NMC", LiNixMnyCozO2)
Lithium Manganese Oxide ("LMO", LiMn2O4)
Lithium Iron Phosphate ("LFP", LiFePO4)

Negative electrode
Graphite
Lithium Titanate ("LTO", Li4Ti5O12)
Hard carbon
Tin/Cobalt Alloy
Silicon/Carbon

Anyone know how far we are from Peak any of that lot? Or what other materials might be used for lithium/ion technology? Or the status of newer technologies?

I don't trust peak anything, Human inginuity is just to good at find more, doing more with less, or substituting materials. I would be interested in finding companies who's commodity price may be supported by increased demand though.


The new bhp spin off south 32 produces manganese, and nickel. Bhp produces the copper and the steel.


Does anyone know a lithium producer on the asx

 

[pixel]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

The new bhp spin off south 32 produces manganese, and nickel. Bhp produces the copper and the steel.
Does anyone know a lithium producer on the asx

Galaxy (GXY) comes to mind, although they're a little away from actually producing.
GMM is planning to take over Mt Cattlin, but they want to mine mainly the tantalum with spodumene a welcome by-product..

Some of the other metals, esp. Titanium and Vanadium, could make TNG more attractive.

 

[Smurf1976]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

That we have a grid in the first place is fundamentally a consequence of the means of generating the power that goes into it, and that is in turn a consequence of the available resources and technology.

The technology we had a century ago was steam and hydro. To use hydro, you necessarily have to build the power station where the resource is, you can't bring the resource to some other location. With steam, you can move the fuel (coal, gas, oil, uranium) but in the case of coal that's costly, and in the other cases even though the fuel can be moved, it's still far more practical and economical to use them at a few very large power stations rather than everyone having their own small power station at home.

Electricity in the 20th Century was thus naturally a very centralised industry. Generate the power at few large power stations, then distribute it to homes and industry.

The same applies to wind. Whilst there's some wind just about everywhere, relatively few locations have enough wind on a consistent basis to generate a decent supply of power. And those places are, since they are so windy, not where most people would want to live.

What's different with solar is that the primary resource, that is sunlight, occurs naturally where the electricity is required. There's no need to move either the resource or the power, since it's already in the right location. Solar is also practical on a small scale. You can have a few solar panels on the roof far more easily than you could have your own steam turbines and coal-fired boiler at home. Put those two attributes together and, if we're going to use solar as the primary resource, then you don't actually need a grid to distribute the power in most situations. It's already distributed at the time it's produced.

The problems with solar are that (1) it's intermittent meaning that storage is required and (2) is low density. It works to power a home but there's nowhere near enough sun falling on the roof of a smelter to power the activity in the sheds under that roof.

I see a future where we still have centralised generation and we still have a grid, but the smaller loads take care of themselves. The grid will supply factories, CBD offices, trains, electric car charging stations and so on but a home in the suburbs it won't be needed in most parts of Australia.

As one scenario, you live in a typical suburban house, you have solar and are off-grid (because the grid was turned off in your street a few years earlier). You have an all-electric car and another plug-in hybrid car. Where the interface occurs is via the vehicles. Surplus power at home? No problem, you charge the car with it. Running low on power at home? No problem, you dump some energy out of the car's battery into your house battery. Need to buy some power? No problem, that's what your local "service station" is for - you drive there, charge the car with power from the grid and either use that power to run the car or, if necessary, dump some into your home system.

Under that scenario, there's still a grid and you can still access it but not directly. Service stations won't be routinely busy in Summer but they'll be busy places when there's a few days of cloud.

Another point is about diversity. Go back 50 years and it was all very simple. Most electricity came from the locally available resource - in Australia that's coal for most places, hydro in Tas. Then we used a bit of other fuel, mostly oil, as a "top up" to meet the peaks or when problems occurred with the main means of generation. Cars ran on petrol, of which there were only two grades. Industry used coal or oil. That was pretty much all there was to know about energy in Australia.

Then we started using a lot more oil for power generation in WA and SA since it had become cheaper than coal.

Then gas came along in Vic and SA, soon followed by WA, with SA coming to rely heavily on it for power and the other states using it back then primarily for homes and industry.

Then the environmental movement emerged. A war erupted over a planned oil and gas-fired power station in Vic and another war sprang up over hydro development in Tas. That power station in Vic was only ever half built, and the Franklin River is still flowing free today and probably always will.

Then along came broader concerns about pollution. CBD area coal-fired power stations closed, we started taking the lead out of petrol and we started to worry about CO2. Around the same time health and safety became a similar concern with asbestos bringing about the early demise of quite a few power stations.

Now we've added landfill gas, wind and solar. Cars no longer need just Super or Standard, there's now 7 different fuels available at some service stations. And so on.

The big trend there is diversity. It is no longer a given that a house in Sydney has off-peak hot water ultimately heated by black coal. It is no longer a given that dinner is cooked in Hobart on an electric stove powered by hydro. There's far more diversity at both ends of the line, production and use, than was once the case.

Going forward, there's no inherent need for any new technology to completely replace what already exists. There's no reason why we can't have cars available in either diesel or electric depending on what suits the buyer. There's no reason why we can't have off-grid homes and on-grid CBD's and factories. Etc.

 

[SirRumpole]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

Trouble is Smurf that what you say makes sense to non political people.

When you have large vested interests (whether they be coal, gas, or the renewable industry) in the wallets of politicians, then the game changes.

Decisions are no longer being made by scientists or engineers based on the best cost benefit returns, they are being made by some dude in a boardroom concerned about his own job.

The debacle over the Melbourne East West link is a prime example. Pork barrelling at its worst. Infrastructure Australia said the project didn't stack up, so Abbott just took IA out of the picture and said "we know what's best for the country even though we have no qualifications whatever in the industry.

That's why we are stuffed, stupid politicians.

 

[skc]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

I see a future where we still have centralised generation and we still have a grid, but the smaller loads take care of themselves. The grid will supply factories, CBD offices, trains, electric car charging stations and so on but a home in the suburbs it won't be needed in most parts of Australia.

As one scenario, you live in a typical suburban house, you have solar and are off-grid (because the grid was turned off in your street a few years earlier). You have an all-electric car and another plug-in hybrid car. Where the interface occurs is via the vehicles. Surplus power at home? No problem, you charge the car with it. Running low on power at home? No problem, you dump some energy out of the car's battery into your house battery. Need to buy some power? No problem, that's what your local "service station" is for - you drive there, charge the car with power from the grid and either use that power to run the car or, if necessary, dump some into your home system.

Under that scenario, there's still a grid and you can still access it but not directly. Service stations won't be routinely busy in Summer but they'll be busy places when there's a few days of cloud.

This is brilliant stuff. I was wondering how many batteries one would need to maintain say 99% uptime in a solar+storage setup. But this gets around the issue beautifully.

Perhaps there's another system where these Powerwall's can be replaced like LPG cylinders. If you run out of power at home, just go to the local service station for a swap-n-go.

 

[Smurf1976]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

Something I'll just add is that all this off-grid solar stuff is, in an economic sense, far more about the grid as such than it is about energy production.

This might surprise a few people, but even if you really do own the electricity company, indeed if you are the electricity company, it still makes sense to use stand alone solar for small loads. Hydro Tas has plenty of small standalone solar systems and has done so for quite a long time now. Some are for monitoring purposes (flow in rivers or canals, levels etc) but there are some others which actually run big mechanical systems which in turn are necessary in order to operate the "real" power stations which feed the grid. Things like opening and closing valves and so on. There's even stand alone solar literally on top of large dams in some cases.

Quite simply, it's cheaper to put in stand alone solar than it is to keep maintaining a power line in the middle of nowhere that is vulnerable to extreme weather etc and which isn't needed by anyone else. That remains true even if you do happen to own the power station that would be feeding power into that line in the first place.

The financial attractiveness of solar is largely about avoiding network (grid) costs in the first place. The value of the actual power generated is comparatively minor with conventional coal / gas / hydro still far cheaper than solar on an energy only basis.

 

[ghotib]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

Something I'll just add is that all this off-grid solar stuff is, in an economic sense, far more about the grid as such than it is about energy production.

<SNIP>

The financial attractiveness of solar is largely about avoiding network (grid) costs in the first place. The value of the actual power generated is comparatively minor with conventional coal / gas / hydro still far cheaper than solar on an energy only basis.

O Wow!! I've been failing to make any sense of discussions about cost of power for YEARS, largely (I think) because it's so often unclear whether cost means cost to generator, cost to consumer, or cost to intermediary. Smurf, would you care to comment on either or both of these two articles:

1. About startup company Reposit (http://reposit.com.au ), which provides a system for enabling anyone to store and to trade the electricity they generate. Can you see how this nano-trading, presumably algorithmic, would be worthwhile? http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/households-to-use-solar-storage-to-trade-electricity-with-grid-99142 (Someone - Basilio? - posted about this earlier today)

2. Rethinking first impressions and concluding that in many places Powerwall makes rooftop solar cheaper than grid power NOW. Written from the US but looks at prices in several countries, including Oz. My biggest question about this one is whether his Powerwall calculations make sense. http://rameznaam.com/2015/04/30/tesla-powerwall-battery-economics-almost-there/

This feels like the week IBM released its first personal computer: geekery flipping over to routinely ubiquitous (well, as we understood ubiquity back then). Powerwall is a lot more elegant than the PC though

 

[Value Collector]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

Perhaps there's another system where these Powerwall's can be replaced like LPG cylinders. If you run out of power at home, just go to the local service station for a swap-n-go.

I don't know about any plans for the power wall swap, but here is Teslas demo of the automated car battery swap, it's faster than filling your petrol tank, and you don't have to get out of the car.

The battery swap will be a paid for premium service, however tesla charge stations will do a 25 minute super charge for free for the life of the car to anyone who purchases their car.

[video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HlaQuKk9bFg[/video]

 

[McLovin]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

Really fascinating posts, smurf. Anything that moves us from coal to renewable has to be a step in the right direction. I also like your idea about running down to the local Caltex to pick up some power.

 

[qldfrog]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

This feels like the week IBM released its first personal computer: geekery flipping over to routinely ubiquitous (well, as we understood ubiquity back then). Powerwall is a lot more elegant than the PC though

+1
a decisive step for mankind, BUT I expect it to be hard to fight for in Australia.With a lot of government blocages (both sides as a result of the lobbies involved)

 

[SirRumpole]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

I doubt if purely electric cars will be much more than a curiosity for a while due to "range fear", diesel/electric hybrids seem much more practical.

 

[Value Collector]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

I doubt if purely electric cars will be much more than a curiosity for a while due to "range fear", diesel/electric hybrids seem much more practical.

Tesla has quelled that fear a bit in the USA by building their super charge network, also the batteries are getting better.

Did you what the video of the automated battery swap? they did two vehicles in the time it takes to fill a take of petrol.

I linked the battery swap station video above, but here is the free super charger station.

 

[SirRumpole]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

Tesla has quelled that fear a bit in the USA by building their super charge network, also the batteries are getting better.

Did you what the video of the automated battery swap? they did two vehicles in the time it takes to fill a take of petrol.

I linked the battery swap station video above, but here is the free super charger station.

Looks like things are moving in the right direction.

 

[McLovin]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

Tesla has quelled that fear a bit in the USA by building their super charge network, also the batteries are getting better.

Did you what the video of the automated battery swap? they did two vehicles in the time it takes to fill a take of petrol.

I linked the battery swap station video above, but here is the free super charger station.

The development of their autopilot program on the Tesla S is pretty cool too. In a few years you'll be able to drive to where you want to go then program your car to go and find a car spot, then when you're ready get your to come pick you up. There's a pretty good head of steam built up now in the whole renewable space and I reckon we're at a point of inflexion where use of electric cars and renewables will rapidly accelerate.

Who needs Uber!

 

[sptrawler]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

The development of their autopilot program on the Tesla S is pretty cool too. In a few years you'll be able to drive to where you want to go then program your car to go and find a car spot, then when you're ready get your to come pick you up. There's a pretty good head of steam built up now in the whole renewable space and I reckon we're at a point of inflexion where use of electric cars and renewables will rapidly accelerate.

Who needs Uber!

I think you're spot on McLovin, the electric vehicle is in its infancy, but it is becoming viable for cities. This is where the major population is anyway, so it follows once consumers have the confidence the range and recharge isn't a problem, they will take off.

By the way good call on the banks.

 

[Smurf1976]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

O Wow!! I've been failing to make any sense of discussions about cost of power for YEARS, largely (I think) because it's so often unclear whether cost means cost to generator, cost to consumer, or cost to intermediary.

Let's look at the Vic and NSW spot prices today. They have both behaved much the same (a consequence of demand not being extreme enough to limit transfer between states) and the price has varied between about 1.0 and 4.0 cents per kWh at the wholesale spot price level. Much the same in Qld, Tas and SA today also.

Now, if you can buy at 1 cent and sell at 4 cents later on the same day then that's not a bad trade.

There's a similarity between a battery and conventional (non-pumped) hydro generation, the only real difference being that the battery has to be charged whereas the hydro system is self-charging via rainfall. But they are both able to deliver large amounts of energy quickly in response to price and demand changes.

For example, at 4am this morning the price in Vic was just under 1 cent / kWh. Here in Tas we had Gordon power station (to pick a random example) idling along at a mere 10MW, and even that has more to do with environmental requirements (keeping the river moving downstream) than an actual need for power at that time. But then at 6pm today, the same power station was humming along nicely at 330MW. Quite a few of the others were also ramped up to much higher levels than at night, or brought online (ie were completely shut down overnight).

Individual generating companies have different strategies, but for a hydro operator the crux of it is that Gordon (for example) can't continuously operate at its' full 432MW capacity and was never intended to. The lake holds 2.5 years' worth of inflows, so there's a lot of flexibility as to when to use the water, but ultimately it doesn't run flat out all the time. Overall, that's broadly similar to discharging a battery, apart from the means of charging it in the first place. (Contrary to popular belief, it IS possible to do baseload hydro, we do have some down here, but in most cases it's a better use of the resource to have peaking capacity).

You can get some idea of how it's all worked out reading this. It's very hydro-specific, but the overall principles apply to anything that is storage based in the electricity market. This is the public "layman's terms" version so nothing too hard to grasp. http://www.hydro.com.au/system/file...out/Whats-that-about_WaterModelling_Apr13.pdf

PS - the same strategy works for trading other things. Oil and US Dollars come immediately to mind as do share market indices.

Trading electricity at home would really be no different overall, although you'd (1) presumably take transmission and distribution constraints into account far more than is relevant at the bulk wholesale level and (2) would need to automate the process to have any real chance of making money - electricity prices are volatile way beyond what happens in any other market with huge price swings happening just about every day and sometimes several times a day.

 

[Value Collector]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

nice stuff smurf.

Is Tassie a net importer or exporter of electricity?

do you think that if large scale electrical storage became a reality, then it would work in favour of the most efficient coal plants, and cause a flattening of the price which may knock out peaking plants and new renewable developments?

 

[SirRumpole]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

Trading electricity at home would really be no different overall, although you'd (1) presumably take transmission and distribution constraints into account far more than is relevant at the bulk wholesale level and (2) would need to automate the process to have any real chance of making money - electricity prices are volatile way beyond what happens in any other market with huge price swings happening just about every day and sometimes several times a day

Isn't there an Electricity Futures Market yet ?

 

[Value Collector]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

The development of their autopilot program on the Tesla S is pretty cool too. In a few years you'll be able to drive to where you want to go then program your car to go and find a car spot, then when you're ready get your to come pick you up.

Yeah, very cool indeed, Elon is doing a great job at pushing the boundaries of technology at both Tesla and space ex.

I have no idea how to value Telsa as a Business, but it is certainly great to watch.

I like the Tesla Model X that's coming out. It would suit my needs perfectly, especially if Tesla build their planned super charge network between Brisbane and Melbourne.

 

[pixel]

Re: Do you have solar panels?

Yeah, very cool indeed, Elon is doing a great job at pushing the boundaries of technology at both Tesla and space ex.

I have no idea how to value Telsa as a Business, but it is certainly great to watch.

I like the Tesla Model X that's coming out. It would suit my needs perfectly, especially if Tesla build their planned super charge network between Brisbane and Melbourne.

The S P85D is no slouch either. Watch it race a Merc 550
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zuh_ylt2keg