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The Real World Costs Of Backing Up Weather-Dependent Electricity Generation With Battery Storage

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rangerrebew:
The Real World Costs Of Backing Up Weather-Dependent Electricity Generation With Battery Storage
August 08, 2023/ Francis Menton

A recurring question at this blog has been, how do the world’s politicians plan to provide reliable electricity without fossil fuels?  Country after country, and state after state, have announced grand plans for what they call “Net Zero” electricity generation, universally accompanied by schemes for massive build-outs of wind and solar generation facilities.  But what is the strategy for the calm nights, or for the sometimes long periods at the coldest times of the winter when both wind and sun produce near zero electricity for days or even weeks on end?

When pressed, the answer given is generally “batteries” or “storage.”  That answer might appear plausible before you start to think about it quantitatively.  To introduce some quantitative thinking into the situation, last December I had a Report published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation titled “The Energy Storage Conundrum.”   That Report discussed several calculations of how much energy storage would be required to get various jurisdictions through a year with only wind and/or solar generation and only batteries for back-up, with fossil fuels excluded from the mix.  The number are truly breathtaking: for California and Germany, approximately 25,000 GWh of storage to make it through a year; for the continental U.S., approximately 233,000 GWh of storage to make it through a year.  At a wildly optimistic assumption of $100/kWh for storage, this would price out at $2.5 trillion for California or Germany, $23.3 trillion for the U.S. — equal or greater than the entire GDP of the jurisdiction.  At more realistic assumptions of $300 - 500/kWh for battery storage, you would be looking at 3 to 5 times GDP for one round of batteries, which would then need replacement every few years.

But even these numbers wildly understate the real world costs of storage that would be needed.  Here’s why: the calculations that I presented were based on actually data for particular years, and what storage would have been needed to make it through that year.  For example, here is the chart from my Report of the annual charge and discharge cycle for a collection of batteries that would have been sufficient to get California through the year 2017 on a wind/solar system, fossil fuels eliminated, without running out of electricity:

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2023-8-8-the-real-world-costs-of-backing-up-weather-dependent-electricity-generation-with-battery-storage

Fishrrman:
The primary sources (wind, solar) will fail when needed most.

The backup source (batteries) will fail, too.

So, what will folks use?

libertybele:
Just looking at a simple residence run by solar is expensive and just not feasible even in FL where we get ample sun. Solar panels, back up batteries and storage batteries are very steep in price and will NOT run your entire house at once.  I've checked into it several times with several different companies.  Those that solicited us would not relay that information even when I tried to drag it out of them and they did everything they could to skirt around the issue. Secondly, the power companies don't pay you back as much as they claim, even over a long period of time.

Perhaps the biggest issue right now at least in this area is insurance companies are refusing or dropping customers who have solar panels.  So, solar panels are cost prohibitive in the long run actually.

We even received a newsletter from our realtor stating not to go with solar for the very reasons I listed above.

berdie:

--- Quote from: libertybele on August 11, 2023, 10:17:12 pm ---Just looking at a simple residence run by solar is expensive and just not feasible even in FL where we get ample sun. Solar panels, back up batteries and storage batteries are very steep in price and will NOT run your entire house at once.  I've checked into it several times with several different companies.  Those that solicited us would not relay that information even when I tried to drag it out of them and they did everything they could to skirt around the issue. Secondly, the power companies don't pay you back as much as they claim, even over a long period of time.

Perhaps the biggest issue right now at least in this area is insurance companies are refusing or dropping customers who have solar panels.  So, solar panels are cost prohibitive in the long run actually.

We even received a newsletter from our realtor stating not to go with solar for the very reasons I listed above.

--- End quote ---


That's interesting information. Thanks for passing it along.

Bigun:

--- Quote from: libertybele on August 11, 2023, 10:17:12 pm ---Just looking at a simple residence run by solar is expensive and just not feasible even in FL where we get ample sun. Solar panels, back up batteries and storage batteries are very steep in price and will NOT run your entire house at once.  I've checked into it several times with several different companies.  Those that solicited us would not relay that information even when I tried to drag it out of them and they did everything they could to skirt around the issue. Secondly, the power companies don't pay you back as much as they claim, even over a long period of time.

Perhaps the biggest issue right now at least in this area is insurance companies are refusing or dropping customers who have solar panels.  So, solar panels are cost prohibitive in the long run actually.

We even received a newsletter from our realtor stating not to go with solar for the very reasons I listed above.

--- End quote ---

Solar is a huge maintenance headache and a very costly one as well.

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