To put it in perspective. During the recent cold weather the State of Texas was short of 16GW of power for more than 40 hours making it 640GWh shortfall in amount of energy needed. You would need 6400 batteries 100MWh each to meet such demand. The only thing that a single 100MWh battery in Texas will be good for is stabilizing the grid against short-term load fluctuations -- the job a similar Tesla battery has been successfully doing in Australia.
TFA says 100MW, not MWh. So it's not clear if this is the maximum discharge rate or the actual storage capacity.
Side note – I don't think I'll ever stop being annoyed that we use Wh instead of J for things like this, very confusing to people and makes conversions harder.
I remember that some facilities were shutdown because their auxiliary power generation units froze. So if batteries would only supply these mission critical apparatus their overall effect can be multiplied.
Batteries are not going to substitute for winterized generation. They are to provide ancillary services such as frequency response (as you mention regarding the Tesla Hornsdale Power Reserve install), previously provided primarily by thermal generators, as well as short term dispatchable discharge (think expensive peaker plants). ERCOT (in Texas) also has a market for generators able to provide black start services (note the grid location of Gambit's install in this article, it sits at the intersection of transmission infrastructure connecting it to thermal generators in the area [1]).
During the rolling blackouts, no attention was paid to avoiding circuits that were powering natural gas compressors and other similar natural gas distribution infra [2] (sidenote: I expect Tesla to do well in battery backing such loads). More distributed battery infra makes the grid more durable, and less at risk for totally black starts [3] [4].
From the city's link to project information [5]:
"Will the battery provide energy to Angelton during a black out or natural disaster?
If charged, the battery can help the local electric system come back online by providing energy to ‘jump
start’ electric generators in the. This service is called ‘black start’ capability; the battery is able to help the
grid come back online after going ‘black’."
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_start (A black start is the process of restoring an electric power station or a part of an electric grid to operation without relying on the external electric power transmission network to recover from a total or partial shutdown.)
I would argue that a water damn would be a better storage of energy than batteries. Although it can be environmentaly problematic depending where you put it, it can hold an enormous amount if energy which can be switched on in seconds.
Thanks for the figures. Can this also alter the economics of Texas' grid ? after all a stabler supply probably means stabler prices, the lack of control worsened the recent crisis I believe.
Phase 1 of Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility was connected to the power grid and began operating on 11 December 2020, at the site of Moss Landing Power Plant, a natural gas power station owned by Vistra since it acquired the facility’s previous owner, Dynegy in 2018.
At 300MW / 1,200MWh, the BESS is considerably larger than the 250MW / 250MWh Gateway Energy Storage project brought online earlier this year by LS Power, also in California. Not only that, but Phase 2 of Vistra’s project will add another 100MW / 400MWh and is scheduled for completion by August this year.
Right, the difference between these older, larger facilities and Tesla's massive and giant facility is Telsa has a dedicated person with magazine editors on speed dial, while Dynegy doesn't.
Both TFA and the Bloomberg article it references [1] mention the 100MW power throughput of the battery, which is pretty meaningless without also knowing the energy capacity. For reference, the similar 100MW battery installation in Australia has 129MWh capacity [2].
This project is less remarkable when you read "About 2,100 megawatts of battery storage ... are in advanced stages of connecting to Ercot’s grid." [1].
Also for comparison: a single pumped-storage plant will often have storage capacity in the GWh; e.g. the Linth-Limmern pumped storage part in Switzerland can store 33 GWh and provides 1000 MW peak power.
Can we have "100 MW" in the title, either after "giant", or in substitution with "giant"? I think it would be a much better title.
Edit: also, forgot to mention that most people don't seem to know that batteries used for these type of large projects are not in competition with batteries used in cars, in the sense that they are either of a different kind, or recycled/used ones.
Tesla recently build a big battery like this in Adelaide (south australia) to much fanfare. A friend who works reasonably high up in electricity distribution engineering tells me that you open the doors on the tesla-emblazoned cabinets and it's simply all siemens (IIRC) gear inside. (Not to say that tesla isn't value-adding by organising the sale!)
Electrical distribution is a solved problem though and has been for almost a century. The notable part of that battery facility isn't the Siemens "gear", it's the Tesla batteries.
heh interesting, although considering Tesla kinda made the whole thing extremely fast, I'm not surprised they rebranded parts already available from other brands.
Even if this battery seems to be gigantic now, in 15 years it will look small, much like Falcon 1 is now just a tiny teeny rocket compared to Starship + Super Heavy.
I wonder if the boring company has any plans to create tunnels that could be used for gravity energy storage.
After all, if they have the tech to continuously bore long tunnels, boring straight down becomes a much easier task as you don't need as much anchorage to provide forward pressure.
You can essentially use the front plate of a TBM, and have it "fall" into the ground with a large weight behind it.
Better idea (maybe): store even more gravitational energy by sending heavy weights into orbit. Just use booster rockets to make it fall through the atmosphere, regenerating vast amounts of energy in the process.
At a certain point you would think it's cheaper to soak up excess energy with something other than lithium-ion, like gravity batteries or flywheels, but apparently not...
Batteries are just straight amazing, aren't they? Every other solution is just so complicated. Like pumped storage. You run power to a powerful electric pump, which moves water into a huge reservoir, which produces power through a hydro plant. Or a flywheel. You run electricity to a motor, which spins a huge piece of levitated metal, which then can run a generator.
A battery is an inert block you send electricity directly into and get electricity directly out of. It's quite literally a black box of electrical energy storage.
No other solution is ever going to be quite that simple -- electricity in, electricity out. There's always some other complexity, some other mechanism, some other pump, some shielding, some motor.
Lithium, iron, phosphorus, and oxygen are all pretty abundant and cheap. The economies of scale and better processes need to kick in (even more) to make them cheaper. Say, steel was very expensive until the Bessemer process became widespread.
Gravity batteries are very low-density, and flywheels are prone to dangerous catastrophic failures. They also need mechanical generators which aren't free. I'm suspect that chemical batteries are the future.
Actually I think batteries will be the cheapest option for a very long time. They can be produced at a much higher scale than today (I wouldn't be surprised if we see 10x the production in the next five to ten years and consequently prices below $30/kwh) and they can be setup incrementally. Most alternatives are fixed-size all-or-nothing affairs. Oh and the biggest downside of batteries, their low energy density doesn't really matter for stationary storage.
Not an expert by anymeans, but it takes a long time for those to start producing energy when required (5 mins+). I believe in Australia, the Tesla battery was able to start providing energy in seconds.
This battery is obviously not for shock winters since capacity falls in cold weather. When i first saw the title i pictured in my mind a titanic model y rolling through the rural areas of texas...
I like your point about proper scientific units for headlines, and disagree with pumped energy storage. If you aren't gifted with appropriate geology, it really isn't nearly as effective an option, is it? Also, response time is a lot different. There is enough room for both it would seem.
Good lord can we please move away from the common misnomer of kW, MW, GW, and TW when we mean kWh, MWh, GWh, and TWh? It makes me angrier than it should, but aside from BTUs (heating/cooling) it's the only one I'm aware of that is so stubborn.
As far as I read the article they are really talking about 100 MW maximum power output; they mention that the Australian version can supply that 100 MW for a bit more than an hour (so store a bit more than 100MWh), so they seem to be aware of the distinction but apparently don’t know (?) the energy storage capacity of the planned battery installation.
[+] [-] lr1970|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fastball|5 years ago|reply
Side note – I don't think I'll ever stop being annoyed that we use Wh instead of J for things like this, very confusing to people and makes conversions harder.
[+] [-] ACAVJW4H|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grey-area|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|5 years ago|reply
During the rolling blackouts, no attention was paid to avoiding circuits that were powering natural gas compressors and other similar natural gas distribution infra [2] (sidenote: I expect Tesla to do well in battery backing such loads). More distributed battery infra makes the grid more durable, and less at risk for totally black starts [3] [4].
From the city's link to project information [5]:
"Will the battery provide energy to Angelton during a black out or natural disaster?
If charged, the battery can help the local electric system come back online by providing energy to ‘jump start’ electric generators in the. This service is called ‘black start’ capability; the battery is able to help the grid come back online after going ‘black’."
[1] https://openinframap.org/#9.18/29.1828/-95.4064
[2] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/giant-flaw-texas-blackouts-cu... (A Giant Flaw in Texas Blackouts: It Cut Power to Gas Supplies)
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_start (A black start is the process of restoring an electric power station or a part of an electric grid to operation without relying on the external electric power transmission network to recover from a total or partial shutdown.)
[4] https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/18/texas-power-outages-... (Texas was "seconds and minutes" away from catastrophic monthslong blackouts, officials say)
[5] http://angleton.tx.us/DocumentCenter/View/3793/Gambit-Energy...
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] sschueller|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agumonkey|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philipkglass|5 years ago|reply
"At 300MW / 1,200MWh, the world’s largest battery storage system so far is up and running"
https://www.energy-storage.news/news/at-300mw-1200mwh-the-wo...
Phase 1 of Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility was connected to the power grid and began operating on 11 December 2020, at the site of Moss Landing Power Plant, a natural gas power station owned by Vistra since it acquired the facility’s previous owner, Dynegy in 2018.
At 300MW / 1,200MWh, the BESS is considerably larger than the 250MW / 250MWh Gateway Energy Storage project brought online earlier this year by LS Power, also in California. Not only that, but Phase 2 of Vistra’s project will add another 100MW / 400MWh and is scheduled for completion by August this year.
[+] [-] jeffbee|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] retzkek|5 years ago|reply
This project is less remarkable when you read "About 2,100 megawatts of battery storage ... are in advanced stages of connecting to Ercot’s grid." [1].
1. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-03-08/tesla-is-... 2. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/12/tesla-beats-deadline-sw...
[+] [-] ar0|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dylan16807|5 years ago|reply
I disagree. You can reasonably assume a battery bank will have a capacity between an hour and a few hours.
[+] [-] simonebrunozzi|5 years ago|reply
Edit: also, forgot to mention that most people don't seem to know that batteries used for these type of large projects are not in competition with batteries used in cars, in the sense that they are either of a different kind, or recycled/used ones.
[+] [-] chubs|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ajross|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agumonkey|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] inglor_cz|5 years ago|reply
Even if this battery seems to be gigantic now, in 15 years it will look small, much like Falcon 1 is now just a tiny teeny rocket compared to Starship + Super Heavy.
[+] [-] marshmallow_12|5 years ago|reply
In 110 years time Elons' interstellar Universeship will dwarf both his battery and the Starship.
[+] [-] j-pb|5 years ago|reply
After all, if they have the tech to continuously bore long tunnels, boring straight down becomes a much easier task as you don't need as much anchorage to provide forward pressure.
You can essentially use the front plate of a TBM, and have it "fall" into the ground with a large weight behind it.
[+] [-] detritus|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marshmallow_12|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] umvi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thehappypm|5 years ago|reply
A battery is an inert block you send electricity directly into and get electricity directly out of. It's quite literally a black box of electrical energy storage.
No other solution is ever going to be quite that simple -- electricity in, electricity out. There's always some other complexity, some other mechanism, some other pump, some shielding, some motor.
[+] [-] nine_k|5 years ago|reply
Gravity batteries are very low-density, and flywheels are prone to dangerous catastrophic failures. They also need mechanical generators which aren't free. I'm suspect that chemical batteries are the future.
[+] [-] choeger|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bpodgursky|5 years ago|reply
(also, these dams have failed before to great misfortune downstream)
[+] [-] doggodaddo78|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] giarc|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] marshmallow_12|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ajross|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lambda_obrien|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doggodaddo78|5 years ago|reply
100 MW for 100 h is 10 GWh
It helps to use proper units, doesn't it?
Large-scale battery storage is completely asinine when PES is far superior.
[+] [-] pjc50|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] ar0|5 years ago|reply