The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[Talksteer]

Jambo85 said:

Talksteer said:

Dinorwig Power Station has 9.1GWh of storage, to put that into battery storage terms Tesla's 4860 battery pilot plant has a 10GWh annual production capacity

My bold - can you confirm this is what you mean? Because if it is then they are by no means comparable.

Genuine question, I haven’t looked it up.

Edit - I think I’ve misunderstood - you’re talking about an EV battery manufacturing plant, not grid connected battery storage?

Edited by Jambo85 on Thursday 22 April 07:49

You are correct, I was pointing out that automotive are going to produce a very large quantity of batteries.

Hence the observation that Tesla's pilot line could make enough batteries to replicate Dinorwig in a single year.

[Jambo85]

Talksteer said:

You are correct, I was pointing out that automotive are going to produce a very large quantity of batteries.

Hence the observation that Tesla's pilot line could make enough batteries to replicate Dinorwig in a single year.

Thanks. It’s an interesting point you made too about Wight’s Law and batteries; I’ve always assumed lithium will be too
Expensive to use where portability isn’t required but the consensus seems to disagree with that.

[Condi]

Jambo85 said:

Thanks. It’s an interesting point you made too about Wight’s Law and batteries; I’ve always assumed lithium will be too
Expensive to use where portability isn’t required but the consensus seems to disagree with that.

At the moment the grid connected batteries are earning money from selling services (frequency response, synthetic inertia etc) and not from buying energy at cheap times and dispatching at expensive times.

The "problem" with batteries is that it's not hard to raise £2m for a battery, everyone wants to be in on the act, just look at how much money has gone into green energy funds over the last 12 months. The few doing storage are doing on average about 5 cycles a day, and I don't believe that they will last anywhere near as long as expected. The business case for actually buying cheap energy and dispatching it later is - IMO - flaky at best, with something which has a life-expectancy of a decade at most.

[Talksteer]

PRTVR said:

Electric cars will never be able to be purchased for £500, the manufacturers are locking the battery packs to the cars ,
Insurance companies will be reluctant to cover aftermarket batteries due to the fire risk, the demand worldwide for batteries will maintain a high price for the components required , its never going to be cheap.

The evidence from early Model S is that battery packs are good for 250-500k miles. The ones going in today are more robust.

How on earth do you know what insurance companies will or won't do in 15 years?

If anything there is a decent chance that you will have the option of replacing whole batteries with improved technology, particularly for well regarded and popular models with good residual value.

Tesla for example did a battery upgrade for the V1 roadster.

Following current trends by 2030 a 150KWh battery will be in the region of $7500 and the battery in the car will likely have a residual value of $1-2000 just from it's materials.

[PushedDover]

PVTVR in ‘talking bks’ shocker

[Gary C]

PushedDover said:

PVTVR in ‘talking bks’ shocker

Wonder what PVTVR stands for ?

PhotoVoltaic TVR ?

Maybe he is already a green crusader

[anonymous-user]

The big change in storage capability will, imo, be the domestic adoption or either direct battery storage (powerwalls etc) or in widespread V2G, ie using the increasinlg massive battery in our EVs to load level our homes. When you think about it, a typical modern passenger car is a real powerhouse, often having well over 200 bhp and sometimes as much as 600bhp, and increasinly with a battery rated up to around 100kWh, enough to run a house for a couple of days or more.

At some point, instead of domestic customers having to pay beck and call to industrial consumption that dominates our tarrifs, the opposite will come to fruit, where domestric customers can set the price and control the energy flow.

There are 40 million cars, and 25 million homes in the uk, so that adds up to a huge storage potential

[Evanivitch]

Max_Torque said:

The big change in storage capability will, imo, be the domestic adoption or either direct battery storage (powerwalls etc) or in widespread V2G, ie using the increasinlg massive battery in our EVs to load level our homes. When you think about it, a typical modern passenger car is a real powerhouse, often having well over 200 bhp and sometimes as much as 600bhp, and increasinly with a battery rated up to around 100kWh, enough to run a house for a couple of days or more.

At some point, instead of domestic customers having to pay beck and call to industrial consumption that dominates our tarrifs, the opposite will come to fruit, where domestric customers can set the price and control the energy flow.

There are 40 million cars, and 25 million homes in the uk, so that adds up to a huge storage potential

Domestic storage will definitely help smooth the peaks, and maybe V2G will help with that. That greatly reduces the carbon intensity of the grid by reducing the need for easily dispatched gas and diesel generators.

But none of it addresses the days of low renewables generation, and I personally don't think 100kWh batteries will be the norm, nor do I think they would be sufficient for days of storage when electrical heating is more prevalent.

[Nickgnome]

Evanivitch said:

Max_Torque said:

The big change in storage capability will, imo, be the domestic adoption or either direct battery storage (powerwalls etc) or in widespread V2G, ie using the increasinlg massive battery in our EVs to load level our homes. When you think about it, a typical modern passenger car is a real powerhouse, often having well over 200 bhp and sometimes as much as 600bhp, and increasinly with a battery rated up to around 100kWh, enough to run a house for a couple of days or more.

At some point, instead of domestic customers having to pay beck and call to industrial consumption that dominates our tarrifs, the opposite will come to fruit, where domestric customers can set the price and control the energy flow.

There are 40 million cars, and 25 million homes in the uk, so that adds up to a huge storage potential

Domestic storage will definitely help smooth the peaks, and maybe V2G will help with that. That greatly reduces the carbon intensity of the grid by reducing the need for easily dispatched gas and diesel generators.

But none of it addresses the days of low renewables generation, and I personally don't think 100kWh batteries will be the norm, nor do I think they would be sufficient for days of storage when electrical heating is more prevalent.

We should not still be building houses that require heating other than for fresh air.

Obviously hot water load will still be required.

[Evanivitch]

Nickgnome said:

We should not still be building houses that require heating other than for fresh air.

Obviously hot water load will still be required.

I agree that modern building standards still need to improve greatly, but you can't ignore the existing housing stock that would be almost impossible to convert to such an efficient standard.

[Nickgnome]

Evanivitch said:

I agree that modern building standards still need to improve greatly, but you can't ignore the existing housing stock that would be almost impossible to convert to such an efficient standard.

Yes we have huge legacy stock of draughty poorly insulated houses. They can be improved substantially though with suitable government grants. It's a pity they keep screwing up such schemes.

With borrowing so cheap the payback would be worthwhile.

[robinessex]

Nickgnome said:

Yes we have huge legacy stock of draughty poorly insulated houses.

Fix them, then you'll need an air heat exchange system installed to cure the resulting condensation. Don't ask me how I know. Subsidy for that?

[Evanivitch]

robinessex said:

Fix them, then you'll need an air heat exchange system installed to cure the resulting condensation. Don't ask me how I know. Subsidy for that?

Why not? It's a shame that such schemes always get overcome by cowboys, like cavity wall insulation.

[Nickgnome]

robinessex said:

Nickgnome said:

Yes we have huge legacy stock of draughty poorly insulated houses.

Fix them, then you'll need an air heat exchange system installed to cure the resulting condensation. Don't ask me how I know. Subsidy for that?

I've lived in a solid wall cottage built in 1830, So I know It can be done without condensation problems. In fact I've upgraded every subsequent house including two very low energy self builds and I am about to start my next, maybe, final one.

It may help that I spent my life in building services.

[anonymous-user]

Evanivitch said:

I personally don't think 100kWh batteries will be the norm.

As cell costs fall, and specific energy climbs, most predictions i've seen put typical passcar batteries at or around the 85 to 115kWh mark by 2030. With a typical pascar consumption of 3 to 4 ml/kWh, that is the size required to effectively banish range anxiety for the majority of buyers. Yes, we will see cars with smaller batteries, targetted at low cost / low range, but even these are looking to be around 65 kWh by 2030

[Evanivitch]

Max_Torque said:

As cell costs fall, and specific energy climbs, most predictions i've seen put typical passcar batteries at or around the 85 to 115kWh mark by 2030. With a typical pascar consumption of 3 to 4 ml/kWh, that is the size required to effectively banish range anxiety for the majority of buyers. Yes, we will see cars with smaller batteries, targetted at low cost / low range, but even these are looking to be around 65 kWh by 2030

I guess so, but even with a huge increase in specific energy, we're still going to be creating an excessively heavy vehicle if we're going for circa 100kWh.

Personally, 50kWh with good efficiency and charge speeds (100kW with a good charge curve, similar to M3 SR) I think ticks the range box for lost people.

[dickymint]

Evanivitch said:

Max_Torque said:

As cell costs fall, and specific energy climbs, most predictions i've seen put typical passcar batteries at or around the 85 to 115kWh mark by 2030. With a typical pascar consumption of 3 to 4 ml/kWh, that is the size required to effectively banish range anxiety for the majority of buyers. Yes, we will see cars with smaller batteries, targetted at low cost / low range, but even these are looking to be around 65 kWh by 2030

I guess so, but even with a huge increase in specific energy, we're still going to be creating an excessively heavy vehicle if we're going for circa 100kWh.

Personally, 50kWh with good efficiency and charge speeds (100kW with a good charge curve, similar to M3 SR) I think ticks the range box for lost people.

All well and good but none of this addresses the problem of your average car owner that has no access to charge their car within a "sensible" distance of their home.

[Evanivitch]

dickymint said:

All well and good but none of this addresses the problem of your average car owner that has no access to charge their car within a "sensible" distance of their home.

What's the average annual mileage?
What's the range of a 50kWh car?
How long would it take to charge a 50kWh at a rapid?
How long would it take to charge a 50kWh at a workplace on a 7kW charger?

[PushedDover]

dickymint said:

All well and good but none of this addresses the problem of your average car owner that has no access to charge their car within a "sensible" distance of their home.

Please define the ‘average car owner’ with citations?

Oh and ditto ‘sensible’ distances.

TIA

[Evanivitch]

I'd quite like Aberthaw to be used for a SMR cluster, but fusion research doesn't seem like a bad idea either.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56872376