6 ms·

U.S. battery storage capacity to increase significantly

38 points by another 4y ago

jweir 4y ago
The article doesn’t make this clear so I am assuming those numbers represent GWh of storage. To put this in context Bath County is a reservoir that has 24GWh of storage. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Station https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_S...
- blamazon 4y ago
  Be advised, if one travels to witness this place, (Bath County Pumped Storage Facility) one will likely need to be ready to trespass to get a good look unless you have a prearranged tour. The owners have a lot of money for signs and fencing. But, it's worth it, the grandeur is jaw dropping. There's also little to no cell service due to NRQZ. There's a nice campground at the base of the lower dam. There's actually a lot of pumped energy storage up and down the east coast of the US to take advantage of things like nuclear power arbitrage. (Always-on nuclear power is cheap at night, while on-demand hydro power has a premium during the day) Many manmade power storage lakes doubled as real estate development schemes which made them a slam dunk economically for the power company. For example, my relative has a house on Lake Keowee in South Carolina which has a nuclear power station nestled amongst multimillion dollar lakehouses, and is interlinked to both upper and lower reservoirs for energy storage and heat dissipation. One interesting point is I doubt such projects could be replicated at all today in USA. Batteries are the way forward.
- zizee 4y ago
  Context for your context: Bath County resevoir is descrbed as "largest battery in the world", and cost the equivilent of 4 billion dollars (in 2021 $), occupies 265 acres of land, and has a capacity of around 14,000,000 m3 of water. I'm curious to see how the costs compare. My understanding is pumped hydro storage gets cheaper at scale. If my math is correct, 24GWH of storage at $4 billion dollars^ is $167 per kilowatt hour. What do these batteries cost to install at scale at the moment? What are they predicted to cost in the next 5, or 10 years? ^ does the 4 billion include the cost of land? Probably not important, even at an "expensive" 200k an acre, that's only 50ish million extra in costs.
  - algo_trader 4y ago
    Pumped hydro can amortize over 50-100 years. In a true renewable grid, you will get over 50,000 cycles from the same dam (with some turbine replacements). EDIT: numbers..
    - zizee 4y ago
      How much labour is involved in the upkeep/operation vs a battery bank? I think that there are pros and cons of each, we'll end up with a mix of lots of different solutions.
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      Thermal degradation will likely take it out before 100 years, but odds of wearing out next gen sodium ion batteries by cycling are pretty slim https://natron.energy/product/ https://natron.energy/product/
  - blamazon 4y ago
    Even putting costs aside it seems like it could be unlikely that such a thing could be built at all today. Flooding huge swaths of ecosystems is no longer in vogue and dam removal is picking up in pace. When was the last major scale hydroelectric dam built in USA? Edit: looks like the information is here somewhere in the national dam inventory: https://nid.usace.army.mil/#/dams/search/&viewType=map&resultsType=dams&advanced=false&hideList=false&eventSystem=false https://nid.usace.army.mil/#/dams/search/&viewType=map&resul... But I am very tired and must sleep so I will not query.
    - bobthepanda 4y ago
      It's worth noting that pumped hydro, and the dams that are getting torn down for environmental these days, often look very different. Usually the dams that are getting torn down, block the entire river, and thus fish from passing up or downstream of the dam. (Fish ladders exist but are not particularly effective.) Pumped hydro may sit by the side of a river, but otherwise not obstruct the flow, and so that is not a major issue. (Example rendering: https://cdn.forumcomm.com/dims4/default/3ac369d/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2184x1456+249+0/resize/1680x1120!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fforum-communications-production-web.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F19%2F00%2F20e314aa489f94e1adbb57b51324%2Fscreen-shot-2022-09-23-at-11.54.50%20AM.png https://cdn.forumcomm.com/dims4/default/3ac369d/2147483647/s...)
- digitalscribe 4y ago
  The article is perfectly clear that all the values are watts (MW, GW). It's really silly to assume that the literal Energy Information Administration doesn't know the difference between the units of watts and watt-hours. Battery power capacity is watts. Battery energy capacity is watt-hours. This article is talking about power capacity.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    I think you are right. It is a little confusing because they use the term “battery storage capacity” a bunch of times. This looks like the… amount of storage capacity that the batteries have. But I think they actually mean it as, like, (battery storage) capacity. Like battery storage is just the name of the type of thing that provides [power] capacity.
- fuzzythinker 4y ago
  chart says gigawatts
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Batteries have a power capacity too. Most will be in the 2-4hr range (so double the GW figure for a rough estimate) if so.
- epistasis 4y ago
  You are wrong, the unit is GW, not GWh. Grid resources' most salient aspect is their power rating. For lithium ion batteries, there is typically four hours of duration when discharging at maximum capacity, though sometimes it's as low as one to two hours. And for the earliest lithium ion battery that were used for frequency regulation, it was as low as 15-30 minutes of duration. But today, it's usually safe to multiply the GW by four to get GWh for grid batteries, if one cares about the GWh more than GW for some reason.
crmd 4y ago
> Developers and power plant owners plan to significantly increase utility-scale battery storage capacity in the United States over the next three years, reaching 30.0 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2025 Can someone explain how/why they are measuring storage capacity in watts?
- bamboozled 4y ago
  What should it be measured in?
  - jdsully 4y ago
    watt/hours is the typical measurement. Raw wattage is insufficient without a time component.
    - rightbyte 4y ago
      Wh, not W/h. W/h is a change in power. "Scotty, increase engine power by 1 gigawatt per hour!"
      - epistasis 4y ago
        And for a lot the initial lithium ion storage on the grid, which was used for frequency regulation, the W/h or ability to respond to powe change, was a far far more important characteristic of the batteries than the Wh.
- jupp0r 4y ago
  I came here to complain about the same thing. Don't they have anybody who can proofread these diagrams and texts? For some reason, electric power related articles are super prone to people getting units wrong.
- digitalscribe 4y ago
  Because this is for utility companies where the value of the rate of discharge might be even more important than the energy capacity? A quick look at their site shows "battery power capacity" is measured in watts, whereas "battery energy capacity" is measured in watt-hours. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51798 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51798
tromp 4y ago
As often the case, reporters can't tell power apart from energy, happily confusing Watts and Watt-hours/Joules.
- epistasis 4y ago
  The EIA understands energy and power, the unit names used for energy and power, and is using them correctly in this short article. As much as I hate it when they use terms like "billion kWh" in some of their reports, it is their prerogative and a correct use of terms. Why do people think that battery storage doesn't have a power specification? To the point that they will incorrectly declare others to now know what they are talking about, when in fact the accuser doesn't know?
  - tuatoru 4y ago
    What are you talking about? The very first chart in the article is titled "U.S. Battery Storage Capacity (2015-2025)", but the vertical axis is labelled "gigawatts". Storage capacity is not measured in gigawatts. Edit: yes, batteries also have a power delivery rating, but that is not what is implied by "storage capacity".
    - epistasis 4y ago
      Are you saying that you can't measure battery power capacity? Why would you assert something weird like that? Grid assets are measured by power, and power is a key specification of storage capacity. Edit in response to your edit: the EIA, and in fact all the people who run grids and the grid storage, refer to capacity in terms of power, and when talking about "storage capacity" on the grid continues to use power because it would be nonsensical and silly to switch to a not-so-useful energy unit rather than power unit when power is the key metric for grids.
      - tromp 4y ago
        > Grid assets are measured by power That seems of limited use without knowing for how long the power can be supplied. 1GW for 1 second is pretty useless. 1GW for a minute not much better. Most people would say that 1GW lasting a day is more storage capacity than 10GW lasting only an hour. Wouldn't batteries optimized for power take the form of supercapacitors [1] instead? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor#Comparison_with_other_storage_technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor#Comparison_with...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
olivermarks 4y ago
Suparna Ray, the independent statistics and analysis EIA person writing about Utility scale photovoltaic and thermal here appears to be using EIA forms like this as the basis for her article. (She's listed as a contact on this form but it is hard to find info on who she is). https://www.seia.org/sites/default/files/EIA-860.pdf https://www.seia.org/sites/default/files/EIA-860.pdf It would be good to see the actual data.
- janalsncm 4y ago
  Is this what you’re looking for? https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia860m/ https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia860m/
  - olivermarks 4y ago
    I think that is another generator survey form, not Utility scale photovoltaic and thermal energy generation battery storage. This is an area I'm interested in. HECO in Hawaii are arguably the most advanced in battery storage. https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/documents/clean_energy_hawaii/self_build_faq.pdf https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/documents/clean_energy_hawa...

38 points by another 4y ago

The article doesn’t make this clear so I am assuming those numbers represent GWh of storage. To put this in context Bath County is a reservoir that has 24GWh of storage. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Station https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_S...

blamazon 4y ago
Be advised, if one travels to witness this place, (Bath County Pumped Storage Facility) one will likely need to be ready to trespass to get a good look unless you have a prearranged tour. The owners have a lot of money for signs and fencing. But, it's worth it, the grandeur is jaw dropping. There's also little to no cell service due to NRQZ. There's a nice campground at the base of the lower dam. There's actually a lot of pumped energy storage up and down the east coast of the US to take advantage of things like nuclear power arbitrage. (Always-on nuclear power is cheap at night, while on-demand hydro power has a premium during the day) Many manmade power storage lakes doubled as real estate development schemes which made them a slam dunk economically for the power company. For example, my relative has a house on Lake Keowee in South Carolina which has a nuclear power station nestled amongst multimillion dollar lakehouses, and is interlinked to both upper and lower reservoirs for energy storage and heat dissipation. One interesting point is I doubt such projects could be replicated at all today in USA. Batteries are the way forward.
zizee 4y ago
Context for your context: Bath County resevoir is descrbed as "largest battery in the world", and cost the equivilent of 4 billion dollars (in 2021 $), occupies 265 acres of land, and has a capacity of around 14,000,000 m3 of water. I'm curious to see how the costs compare. My understanding is pumped hydro storage gets cheaper at scale. If my math is correct, 24GWH of storage at $4 billion dollars^ is $167 per kilowatt hour. What do these batteries cost to install at scale at the moment? What are they predicted to cost in the next 5, or 10 years? ^ does the 4 billion include the cost of land? Probably not important, even at an "expensive" 200k an acre, that's only 50ish million extra in costs.
- algo_trader 4y ago
  Pumped hydro can amortize over 50-100 years. In a true renewable grid, you will get over 50,000 cycles from the same dam (with some turbine replacements). EDIT: numbers..
  - zizee 4y ago
    How much labour is involved in the upkeep/operation vs a battery bank? I think that there are pros and cons of each, we'll end up with a mix of lots of different solutions.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    Thermal degradation will likely take it out before 100 years, but odds of wearing out next gen sodium ion batteries by cycling are pretty slim https://natron.energy/product/ https://natron.energy/product/
- blamazon 4y ago
  Even putting costs aside it seems like it could be unlikely that such a thing could be built at all today. Flooding huge swaths of ecosystems is no longer in vogue and dam removal is picking up in pace. When was the last major scale hydroelectric dam built in USA? Edit: looks like the information is here somewhere in the national dam inventory: https://nid.usace.army.mil/#/dams/search/&viewType=map&resultsType=dams&advanced=false&hideList=false&eventSystem=false https://nid.usace.army.mil/#/dams/search/&viewType=map&resul... But I am very tired and must sleep so I will not query.
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    It's worth noting that pumped hydro, and the dams that are getting torn down for environmental these days, often look very different. Usually the dams that are getting torn down, block the entire river, and thus fish from passing up or downstream of the dam. (Fish ladders exist but are not particularly effective.) Pumped hydro may sit by the side of a river, but otherwise not obstruct the flow, and so that is not a major issue. (Example rendering: https://cdn.forumcomm.com/dims4/default/3ac369d/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2184x1456+249+0/resize/1680x1120!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fforum-communications-production-web.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F19%2F00%2F20e314aa489f94e1adbb57b51324%2Fscreen-shot-2022-09-23-at-11.54.50%20AM.png https://cdn.forumcomm.com/dims4/default/3ac369d/2147483647/s...)
digitalscribe 4y ago
The article is perfectly clear that all the values are watts (MW, GW). It's really silly to assume that the literal Energy Information Administration doesn't know the difference between the units of watts and watt-hours. Battery power capacity is watts. Battery energy capacity is watt-hours. This article is talking about power capacity.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  I think you are right. It is a little confusing because they use the term “battery storage capacity” a bunch of times. This looks like the… amount of storage capacity that the batteries have. But I think they actually mean it as, like, (battery storage) capacity. Like battery storage is just the name of the type of thing that provides [power] capacity.
fuzzythinker 4y ago
chart says gigawatts
Schroedingersat 4y ago
Batteries have a power capacity too. Most will be in the 2-4hr range (so double the GW figure for a rough estimate) if so.
epistasis 4y ago
You are wrong, the unit is GW, not GWh. Grid resources' most salient aspect is their power rating. For lithium ion batteries, there is typically four hours of duration when discharging at maximum capacity, though sometimes it's as low as one to two hours. And for the earliest lithium ion battery that were used for frequency regulation, it was as low as 15-30 minutes of duration. But today, it's usually safe to multiply the GW by four to get GWh for grid batteries, if one cares about the GWh more than GW for some reason.

crmd 4y ago

> Developers and power plant owners plan to significantly increase utility-scale battery storage capacity in the United States over the next three years, reaching 30.0 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2025 Can someone explain how/why they are measuring storage capacity in watts?

bamboozled 4y ago
What should it be measured in?
- jdsully 4y ago
  watt/hours is the typical measurement. Raw wattage is insufficient without a time component.
  - rightbyte 4y ago
    Wh, not W/h. W/h is a change in power. "Scotty, increase engine power by 1 gigawatt per hour!"
    - epistasis 4y ago
      And for a lot the initial lithium ion storage on the grid, which was used for frequency regulation, the W/h or ability to respond to powe change, was a far far more important characteristic of the batteries than the Wh.
jupp0r 4y ago
I came here to complain about the same thing. Don't they have anybody who can proofread these diagrams and texts? For some reason, electric power related articles are super prone to people getting units wrong.
digitalscribe 4y ago
Because this is for utility companies where the value of the rate of discharge might be even more important than the energy capacity? A quick look at their site shows "battery power capacity" is measured in watts, whereas "battery energy capacity" is measured in watt-hours. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51798 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51798

tromp 4y ago

As often the case, reporters can't tell power apart from energy, happily confusing Watts and Watt-hours/Joules.

epistasis 4y ago
The EIA understands energy and power, the unit names used for energy and power, and is using them correctly in this short article. As much as I hate it when they use terms like "billion kWh" in some of their reports, it is their prerogative and a correct use of terms. Why do people think that battery storage doesn't have a power specification? To the point that they will incorrectly declare others to now know what they are talking about, when in fact the accuser doesn't know?
- tuatoru 4y ago
  What are you talking about? The very first chart in the article is titled "U.S. Battery Storage Capacity (2015-2025)", but the vertical axis is labelled "gigawatts". Storage capacity is not measured in gigawatts. Edit: yes, batteries also have a power delivery rating, but that is not what is implied by "storage capacity".
  - epistasis 4y ago
    Are you saying that you can't measure battery power capacity? Why would you assert something weird like that? Grid assets are measured by power, and power is a key specification of storage capacity. Edit in response to your edit: the EIA, and in fact all the people who run grids and the grid storage, refer to capacity in terms of power, and when talking about "storage capacity" on the grid continues to use power because it would be nonsensical and silly to switch to a not-so-useful energy unit rather than power unit when power is the key metric for grids.
    - tromp 4y ago
      > Grid assets are measured by power That seems of limited use without knowing for how long the power can be supplied. 1GW for 1 second is pretty useless. 1GW for a minute not much better. Most people would say that 1GW lasting a day is more storage capacity than 10GW lasting only an hour. Wouldn't batteries optimized for power take the form of supercapacitors [1] instead? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor#Comparison_with_other_storage_technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor#Comparison_with...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

olivermarks 4y ago

Suparna Ray, the independent statistics and analysis EIA person writing about Utility scale photovoltaic and thermal here appears to be using EIA forms like this as the basis for her article. (She's listed as a contact on this form but it is hard to find info on who she is). https://www.seia.org/sites/default/files/EIA-860.pdf https://www.seia.org/sites/default/files/EIA-860.pdf It would be good to see the actual data.

janalsncm 4y ago
Is this what you’re looking for? https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia860m/ https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia860m/
- olivermarks 4y ago
  I think that is another generator survey form, not Utility scale photovoltaic and thermal energy generation battery storage. This is an area I'm interested in. HECO in Hawaii are arguably the most advanced in battery storage. https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/documents/clean_energy_hawaii/self_build_faq.pdf https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/documents/clean_energy_hawa...