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To: nuke_road_warrior
Key phrase, surplus electricity assumes you have "Off Peak" electricity to spare.

Perhaps not as true as it once was, peak demand is often met with high temperatures from daytime heating, especially in the summer months when pretty much everything is using the HVAC to full capacity.

What is often neglected to be considered, is that electrical energy is largely used instantaneously, as the amount of grid storage is negligible. This is changing with Solar roofs equipped with a Tesla (or competitor) Wall or Vault system. The user can program (at their discretion) to sell unused power to the grid during any time they choose (rates vary during times and seasons). The grid is also intelligent and will review weather forecasts, for example if the forecast is for a storm in the next 24 hours and your Wall units are at 50% charge, they make take power from the grid and fully charge preemptively to if there is an outage; you are secure.

The other consideration is that batteries that do not make qualification standards for the Tesla EV line; may be very good candidates for a Wall or Vault type utility storage device. Even batteries that have exhausted their useful life as a vehicle battery (down to 80% of full charge), may be useful for utility storage.

Consider all the energy that is generated, and lost due to demand exceeding supply - energy storage is a huge market segment that needs to be developed.

12 posted on 05/11/2021 10:31:12 AM PDT by Hodar (A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.- Burroughs)
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To: Hodar
Consider all the energy that is generated, and lost due to demand exceeding supply - energy storage is a huge market segment that needs to be developed.

If demand exceeds supply you don't loose electricity, some sectors go without, i.e rolling blackouts/brownouts, just like in third world countries or California. If supply exceeds demand, you can "store"the excess in pumped storage hydro, compressed air storage in rock formations or chemically in batteries. Pumped storage hydro is the most developed and is inuse in some parts of the country, it is relatively efficient but requires the ability to have a pumped storage reservoir near grid connections. Compressed air storage has some of the same limitations as pumped storage hydro, requiring large hollow rock formations to store the compressed air. Also compressing air will always be less efficient than pumping water. Battery storage units can be placed anywhere, can be quite efficient, but require toxic and expensive materials to manufacture and must be disposed of as toxic waste at the end of (a short) useful life.

In California especially, surplus electric is becoming a thing of the past. In short, compressed air storage has some utility (no pun intended) but will not be the panacea envisioned by the article.

29 posted on 05/11/2021 1:24:31 PM PDT by nuke_road_warrior (Making the world safe for nuclear power for over 20 years)
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