[derekkraan]

Just for fun I looked up what the plans are in the Netherlands (17 million residents), where I live. Governments all over the world are going to start installing these grid-scale batteries in the coming years, because without them we can't really transition to renewables.

Anyways, the Dutch govt has allocated 400 million EUR [1] and expects to get 160MW - 380 MW installed for this amount (so 1-2x this battery plant in Hawaii). But the national network operator is reducing connection fees and hopes to trigger 2-5GW of new battery capacity by 2030. That's quite massive.

Expect similar new installations pretty much everywhere.

[1] https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/10/09/netherlands-allocates...

[bertil]

There are other types of storage than batteries: flywheels, pumped water storage, etc., and each has a time frame where they are competitive. I’m assuming that with 400M EUR, there’s room for all sorts of short-range and long-range options.

I suspect for the Netherlands, wind supply is the main factor. That typically needs week-long storage; not sure what’s the best tech at this time frame.

[wongarsu]

Pumped hydro is really great at scale, and it's a shame we don't build more of it. But it needs at least a substantial hill, with the ability to build a reservoir at the top and at the bottom (ideally just a natural lake at the bottom). The Netherlands is a uniquely bad place for them due to being famously flat.

Hawaii on the other hand could probably do some really effective pumped hydro plants. I wonder why the have so many battery installations instead?

[EricLeer]

Funnily enough next to wind also solar is one of the major renewable sources in the Netherlands. So also day-night storage would be important.

The Netherlands actually is second place in terms of solar generation per capita in the world (only Australia has more).

[andruby]

Too bad the source doesn’t say it either. Is that 160-380 MWh of energy storage or 160-380 MW of peak output power?

It’s probably the former.

[The_Colonel]

For 400 million EUR you can buy ~300 Tesla Megapacks 2XL which together give ~300 MW of output power and ~1.2 GWh capacity.

[davedx]

Yup - batteries are also getting fast tracked in the TSO connection queue in NL. Lots of good news for Tesla and other battery manufacturers.