When renewables flood the grid with more electricity than is needed at that moment, we don’t say „How wonderful!
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@f4grx Batteries are cheaper and readily available. And store less mechanical energy
It's always surprsing to see how many people ignore the obvious solutions and focus on techno phantasies instead 
Fusion energy, anyone? @derunglaublichefalk@jwildeboer @derunglaublichefalk I have absolutely no fantasy, quite the contrary, I just know that accurate grid frequency management is extremely complex and that it cant be done reliably with solid state devices. I could change my mind by reading convincing elements that describe how to do it in a way I understand.
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@lechimp @jwildeboer I knew I was doing it wrong when my new solar panels started to produce more than I was using this late winter, but could still not push energy to the grid (here in Italy there is a couple months wait between the installation of the panels and the installation of the proper meter)!
I should have baked cake! not ironed clothing!
(to be fair, most of my cake recipes require some hours of advance planning, ironing clothing was the thing I could do on demand. and I still needed to do it.)
@valhalla @jwildeboer ironing clothing should be fine as well
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@jwildeboer I'm constantly amazed by this. I live in Arizona (in the United States). It's a desert where 115F (46C) is common. The sun beats down on us to the point being without AC can be a death sentence, and you'd be shocked at the number of people here who have only negative opinions of solar power. It should be ubiquitous. Every structure should be lined with it with batteries in every building. It's just not the case, and it's nothing short of flabbergasting.
@mike @jwildeboer
Billboard campaign idea: "Why buy energy from far away at extortionate prices when you can harvest it directly from the sky?" -
@derunglaublichefalk The idea of energy storage in flywheels sounds good. But in practice you talk about mechanical elements that will degrade over time, making the practical use complicated as you have to take into account mechanical failure and the huge amount of kinetic energy stored in a flywheel that can lead to catastrophic damage when things get out of whack. It has been tried several times, but never emerged as sustainable solution. @f4grx
@jwildeboer @derunglaublichefalk I know that, so I wonder how to keep the grid sync without these.
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@phf I know it is technically unfeasible to do this. But we need to keep on thinking about ways to make our planet healthier. It's the only one we have. But using renewables for desalination plants to produce drinking water that can also be used for agriculture in desert regions is not that much science fiction
@jwildeboer @phf if we used all the fossil fuel subsidies handed out all over the world and put that into renewables and cleaning up the planet, we would make some remarkable progress. Considering all the possibilities we have, one must assume the majority doesn't want a clean, liveable world. Or is too busy with survival to consider it?!
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@derunglaublichefalk There are other principles that do better, though. Hot sand is as thermal energy storage is one of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_energy_storage @f4grx
@jwildeboer @derunglaublichefalk ah, if they describe hundreds of megawatts for several hours, it's starting to become considerable. Interesting.
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@jwildeboer @derunglaublichefalk I know that, so I wonder how to keep the grid sync without these.
@f4grx Through decentralisation. If you create local "islands" with a single, combined point of exchange to the big grid, you can put a buffer at that point of exchange that is synchronised to the grid but the local grid behind it isn't bound to be in perfect sync. An AC-DC-AC decoupler, so to say. Even smarter would be to switch to DC in general at far more places. @derunglaublichefalk
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When renewables flood the grid with more electricity than is needed at that moment, we don’t say „How wonderful! Let’s find ways to store that excess electricity so we can share it back to the grid when needed.“ Instead we sing the song of fossil fuel capitalism that claims this is a BAD thing and we need to shut down the renewable plants so The Grid can keep on working based on scarcity and rent seeking. It's like we all have been brainwashed by the grid operators and the fossile fuel industry.
@jwildeboer
... yeah i don't get it either.
i don't understand their pants-on-head woo-woo gasoline fume huffing logic.
there are tons of energy intensive processes that are WORTH DOING but are NOT TRADITIONALLY PROFITABLE that we *could* use that electricity for. Like recycling! Or thermal depolymerization so we can LITERALLY UN-MAKE THE PLASTIC. -
When renewables flood the grid with more electricity than is needed at that moment, we don’t say „How wonderful! Let’s find ways to store that excess electricity so we can share it back to the grid when needed.“ Instead we sing the song of fossil fuel capitalism that claims this is a BAD thing and we need to shut down the renewable plants so The Grid can keep on working based on scarcity and rent seeking. It's like we all have been brainwashed by the grid operators and the fossile fuel industry.
@jwildeboer es sind nicht die Netzbetreiber Jan, die investieren Milliarden in den Umbau. Aber mit deutscher Bürokratie, den schon genannten Lobbies und ewig dauernden Genehmigungsverfahren geht's sehr schleppend vorwärts.
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@jwildeboer es sind nicht die Netzbetreiber Jan, die investieren Milliarden in den Umbau. Aber mit deutscher Bürokratie, den schon genannten Lobbies und ewig dauernden Genehmigungsverfahren geht's sehr schleppend vorwärts.
@ChrisW84 The grid operators are begging for billions of public money so they can do what they should have started doing many years ago. They are definitely part of the problem.
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@ChrisW84 The grid operators are begging for billions of public money so they can do what they should have started doing many years ago. They are definitely part of the problem.
@ChrisW84 Remember that most of the current grid operators were created through privatising the grid, which used to be publicly owned infrastructure. They happily took over the grids, reduced investing for many years while driving up the costs for consumers in the name of shareholder value.
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When renewables flood the grid with more electricity than is needed at that moment, we don’t say „How wonderful! Let’s find ways to store that excess electricity so we can share it back to the grid when needed.“ Instead we sing the song of fossil fuel capitalism that claims this is a BAD thing and we need to shut down the renewable plants so The Grid can keep on working based on scarcity and rent seeking. It's like we all have been brainwashed by the grid operators and the fossile fuel industry.
@jwildeboer
And then we have some politic guy who actually believes energy from renewables cannot be stored.No I am not kidding.
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@Reinald There's real scarcity and artificial scarcity. I dare say that the whole digital/internet business is based on artificial scarcity, where we accept things like Digital Rights Management to keep the reality of abundance more or less a secret.
@jwildeboer you are right on this. Digital media is managed for scarcity. But in pysical world it is not so much different - most scarcity is artificial. If we would organize smarter, distribute better, produce more intelligently, many many people would suffer way less.
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@jwildeboer @derunglaublichefalk I have absolutely no fantasy, quite the contrary, I just know that accurate grid frequency management is extremely complex and that it cant be done reliably with solid state devices. I could change my mind by reading convincing elements that describe how to do it in a way I understand.
@f4grx @jwildeboer @derunglaublichefalk I'll just chime in with a few thoughts...
1. reversible hydroelectric is a thing - it already stores surplus energy, and feeds the network in proper sync (there's a small number of large generators, so it's handled as any other "big" powerplant). Tall dams and hydro accumulations have their environmental issues.
1/3
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@f4grx @jwildeboer @derunglaublichefalk I'll just chime in with a few thoughts...
1. reversible hydroelectric is a thing - it already stores surplus energy, and feeds the network in proper sync (there's a small number of large generators, so it's handled as any other "big" powerplant). Tall dams and hydro accumulations have their environmental issues.
1/3
@f4grx @jwildeboer @derunglaublichefalk
2. Solar panels are providing DC, that already gets synchronized to the AC network. I see no issue with having batteries stored on site with the solar panels, providing the same DC to the DC/AC converter/synchronizer. It already works for the panels.2/3
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@f4grx @jwildeboer @derunglaublichefalk
2. Solar panels are providing DC, that already gets synchronized to the AC network. I see no issue with having batteries stored on site with the solar panels, providing the same DC to the DC/AC converter/synchronizer. It already works for the panels.2/3
@f4grx @jwildeboer @derunglaublichefalk
3. Wind turbines generate AC (if I understand correctly) - there's many AC generators on a "wind farm", yet they all get synchronized to the network. If the turbines generate DC, or there's DC involved in the transformation/rectification/synchronization, there's a convenient spot to connect the batteries. If it's purely AC/AC, they're already successfully synching it.
There already is a "production point" where synching to the network is feasible.
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@f4grx @jwildeboer @derunglaublichefalk
2. Solar panels are providing DC, that already gets synchronized to the AC network. I see no issue with having batteries stored on site with the solar panels, providing the same DC to the DC/AC converter/synchronizer. It already works for the panels.2/3
@rubinjoni
that already works great, I have a DC coupled pv battery system.
@f4grx @jwildeboer -
When renewables flood the grid with more electricity than is needed at that moment, we don’t say „How wonderful! Let’s find ways to store that excess electricity so we can share it back to the grid when needed.“ Instead we sing the song of fossil fuel capitalism that claims this is a BAD thing and we need to shut down the renewable plants so The Grid can keep on working based on scarcity and rent seeking. It's like we all have been brainwashed by the grid operators and the fossile fuel industry.
@jwildeboer Worse, we then pay them compensation for shutting it down.
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When renewables flood the grid with more electricity than is needed at that moment, we don’t say „How wonderful! Let’s find ways to store that excess electricity so we can share it back to the grid when needed.“ Instead we sing the song of fossil fuel capitalism that claims this is a BAD thing and we need to shut down the renewable plants so The Grid can keep on working based on scarcity and rent seeking. It's like we all have been brainwashed by the grid operators and the fossile fuel industry.
@jwildeboer Ew free energy.
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@derunglaublichefalk There are other principles that do better, though. Hot sand is as thermal energy storage is one of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_energy_storage @f4grx
@jwildeboer @derunglaublichefalk @f4grx It's ironic that the storage tank in the picture is water-filled and storing excess heat from the gas power plant it belongs to (which is also a district heating plant). They do however have 7 MWh of batteries on-site as a first step.
