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The future of energy generation and storage

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SirRumpole said:
Tesla Discontinues 10-Kilowatt-Hour Powerwall Home Battery

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Tesla-Discontinues-10kWh-Powerwall-Home-Battery
Click to expand...

I was wondering when someone would actually own up, Tesle must have been losing money, hand over fist selling them. IMO

An extract from the article below.

“Even some of the deep cycling lead acid batteries offer 1,000 cycles and cost less than half of the $3,500 price tag for Tesla Powerwall,” said Ravi Manghani, senior energy storage analyst at GTM Research. “For pure backup applications only providing 500 cycles, lead acid batteries or gensets are way more economical.”

The hype might be fading.:D
 
By the way smurph, how is dam storage inflows going in Tassie.
From watching the weather, rainfall looks good.
 
sptrawler said:
By the way smurph, how is dam storage inflows going in Tassie.
From watching the weather, rainfall looks good.
Click to expand...

We had the driest Summer on record and now we've just had the wettest May - July on record.

Storage is now about 35%, up from the low of 12.8%, although for the smaller dams they are mostly either spilling or very close to it with only the long term storage still being low.

Some water was released from Lake Pedder via the discharge valve at Serpentine Dam today. That's the first spill from Pedder since 1988 and illustrates just how wet it has been.

Lake King William, where I produced a video linked earlier in this thread 3 months ago, is about to spill and will do so before the weekend. The area that was completely free of water in that video is now completely submerged.

In general the situation is:

Smaller schemes - either spilling or very close to full. Power stations being run flat out 24/7 at 100% of capacity.

Long term storages - still reasonably low and not being used much if at all (depends on power demand).

Offline: Gordon (not needed, 1 of 3 machines out for maintenance), Lake Echo (not needed, maintenance being done), Paloona (spilling, unavoidable outage). All gas and diesel generation.

Limited use for peak load: Poatina

Operating constantly but not at full output: Tribute. Dam is at a good level but not full.

Operating constantly at 100% of capacity and with the associated storage either spilling or about to: Butlers Gorge, Tarraleah, *Tungatinah, Liapootah, Wayatinah, Catagunya, Repulse, Cluny, Meadowbank, Trevallyn, Rowallan, Fisher, Parangana, Lemonthyme, Wilmot, Cethana, Devils Gate, Mackintosh, Bastyan, Reece, John Buters, Lake Margaret Upper, Lake Margaret Lower.

*Tungatinah has 4 of the 5 machines in service and running at 100% of capacity (actually running a bit over that) 24/7. The other machine is out for a major upgrade.

Overall we've got a lot of "use it or lose it" generation right now. That's meeting Tasmanian demand firstly with, at off-peak times, the surplus going to Victoria.

Photo: Water being released on 27 July from Serpentine Dam (Lake Pedder) for the first time since 1988. Under normal circumstances all water is used for generation however recent inflows have exceeded the canal capacity and caused the Lake to reach 100% of capacity. Technically, spill is achieved by opening the discharge valve which simply runs water from an intake and out to the river at a rate of 240,000 litres per second. This is in addition to normal use of the water which continues at maximum capacity via the canal. Hydro Tas photo (not mine).

Under normal circumstances the location shown would have no significant water flow, being immediately downstream of Serpentine Dam.
 

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Has anyone experience with a solar pool pump (3 phases DC), MPPT, powered by 3/4 panels?
I am thinking about getting off the grid fully with this one, the pool pump is basically a third of my power use on a yearly average
 
qldfrog said:
Has anyone experience with a solar pool pump (3 phases DC), MPPT, powered by 3/4 panels?
I am thinking about getting off the grid fully with this one, the pool pump is basically a third of my power use on a yearly average
Click to expand...
I don't know about solar pool pumps, frog, but solar bore pumps are very popular with farmers. Maybe if you contacted a supplier of them, they may have some ideas.
 
sptrawler said:
I don't know about solar pool pumps, frog, but solar bore pumps are very popular with farmers. Maybe if you contacted a supplier of them, they may have some ideas.
Click to expand...
Thanks Sptrawler, I have contacted suppliers, there are dedicated systems available but I am keen talking to a user for the pro/cons and not the marketing speech.It is not yet that common. If I proceed one way or another, I will post my findings on this thread.
 
Looks like Josh Frydenberg is committed to a renewable energy future and totally accepts the reality of human caused global warming. Big steps for the new government.
Turnbull government's green shift to back renewables
Mark Kenny

Mark Kenny

Malcolm Turnbull's new Environment and Energy Minister, Josh Frydenberg, has welcomed a declining role for coal in Australia's future energy mix, talked up reliable green energy, and locked in the current 23.5 per cent renewable energy target by 2020, in a marked change from the avowedly pro-coal rhetoric of the Abbott government.
Click to expand...
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/fed...shift-to-back-renewables-20160727-gqf6kv.html
 
There's a trial of grid-connected battery storage located at households about to get underway on Bruny Island (Tas).

The island is connected to the main Tas electricity grid via two undersea cables (AC) however peak demand is a problem and at times exceeds capacity of the cables. This is presently addressed by a diesel generator on the island which is used at times of local peak demand (regardless of the supply and demand situation in the rest of the state since transmission to the island is constrained by the capacity of the cables).

The intent is that ultimately battery storage could be a way to replace the diesel generator without needing to upgrade the undersea cables. The trial will assess that potential both on Bruny Island and elsewhere.

More info here: https://www.tasnetworks.com.au/cust...d-outcomes/consort-bruny-island-battery-trial
 
Doubling battery power of consumer electronics​


New lithium metal batteries could make smartphones, drones, and electric cars last twice as long.

An MIT spinout is preparing to commercialize a novel rechargable lithium metal battery that offers double the energy capacity of the lithium ion batteries that power many of today’s consumer electronics.

Founded in 2012 by MIT alumnus and former postdoc Qichao Hu ’07, SolidEnergy Systems has developed an “anode-free” lithium metal battery with several material advances that make it twice as energy-dense, yet just as safe and long-lasting as the lithium ion batteries used in smartphones, electric cars, wearables, drones, and other devices.
“With two-times the energy density, we can make a battery half the size, but that still lasts the same amount of time, as a lithium ion battery. Or we can make a battery the same size as a lithium ion battery, but now it will last twice as long,” says Hu, who co-invented the battery at MIT and is now CEO of SolidEnergy.

The battery essentially swaps out a common battery anode material, graphite, for very thin, high-energy lithium-metal foil, which can hold more ions ”” and, therefore, provide more energy capacity. Chemical modifications to the electrolyte also make the typically short-lived and volatile lithium metal batteries rechargeable and safer to use.
Moreover, the batteries are made using existing lithium ion manufacturing equipment, which makes them scalable.

In October 2015, SolidEnergy demonstrated the first-ever working prototype of a rechargeable lithium metal smartphone battery with double energy density, which earned them more than $12 million from investors. At half the size of the lithium ion battery used in an iPhone 6, it offers 2.0 amp hours, compared with the lithium ion battery’s 1.8 amp hours.

SolidEnergy plans to bring the batteries to smartphones and wearables in early 2017, and to electric cars in 2018. But the first application will be drones, coming this November. “Several customers are using drones and balloons to provide free Internet to the developing world, and to survey for disaster relief,” Hu says. “It’s a very exciting and noble application.”

Putting these new batteries in electric vehicles as well could represent “a huge societal impact,” Hu says: “Industry standard is that electric vehicles need to go at least 200 miles on a single charge. We can make the battery half the size and half the weight, and it will travel the same distance, or we can make it the same size and same weight, and now it will go 400 miles on a single charge.”


Tweaking the “holy grail” of batteries

Researchers have for decades sought to make rechargeable lithium metal batteries, because of their greater energy capacity, but to no avail. “It is kind of the holy grail for batteries,” Hu says.

Lithium metal, for one, reacts poorly with the battery’s electrolyte ”” a liquid that conducts ions between the cathode (positive electrode) and the anode (negative electrode) ”” and forms compounds that increase resistance in the battery and reduce cycle life. This reaction also creates mossy lithium metal bumps, called dendrites, on the anode, which lead to short circuits, generating high heat that ignites the flammable electrolyte, and making the batteries generally non rechargeable.

Measures taken to make the batteries safer come at the cost of the battery’s energy performance, such as switching out the liquid electrolyte with a poorly conductive solid polymer electrolyte that must be heated at high temperatures to work, or with an inorganic electrolyte that is difficult to scale up.

While working as a postdoc in the group of MIT professor Donald Sadoway, a well-known battery researcher who has developed several molten salt and liquid metal batteries, Hu helped make several key design and material advancements in lithium metal batteries, which became the foundation of SolidEnergy’s technology.
One innovation was using an ultrathin lithium metal foil for the anode, which is about one-fifth the thickness of a traditional lithium metal anode, and several times thinner and lighter than traditional graphite, carbon, or silicon anodes. That shrunk the battery size by half.

But there was still a major setback: The battery only worked at 80 degrees Celsius or higher. “That was a showstopper,” Hu says. “If the battery doesn’t work at room temperature, then the commercial applications are limited.”

So Hu developed a solid and liquid hybrid electrolyte solution. He coated the lithium metal foil with a thin solid electrolyte that doesn’t need to be heated to function. He also created a novel quasi-ionic liquid electrolyte that isn’t flammable, and has additional chemical modifications to the separator and cell design to stop it from negatively reacting with the lithium metal.

The end result was a battery with energy-capacity perks of lithium metal batteries, but with the safety and longevity features of lithium ion batteries that can operate at room temperature. “Combining the solid coating and new high-efficiency ionic liquid materials was the basis for SolidEnergy on the technology side,” Hu says.
Click to expand...

 
qldfrog said:
Yes had been there before and ideal for start/stop usage: garbage truck, postman, etc.
Great!!
Click to expand...

Their latest outfit is a completely new design with a different type of hydraulic motor. Check out their website www.advancedhybridsolutions.com for the latest news. They are now in discussions with a top university which has approached them to be involved in further research into hydraulic hybrids. They currently are raising funds to move to commercially trialling the garbage compactor and a bus.;)
 
I think a mistake made with geothermal is location.

SA has the attraction of a massive resource and high electricity prices but it's in the middle of nowhere. Higher costs to get everything out there and any large scale development would have required some major transmission lines to move the power to the existing grid.

In contrast there are smaller but still more than adequate geothermal resources in Vic and Tas right next to the existing grid and existing towns. In Tas at least there's also plenty of water available. Surely that would have lowered costs to some extent, particularly if they had gone ahead with a major development. So no real need to be doing things in the middle of nowhere if they just wanted to prove the concept and get a plant up and running.

See this map: http://www.geothermal-resources.com.au/images/fig2.jpg
 

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