Comments on: Are the Batteries Ready? 100% Clean Energy Requires Progress on Storage

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 18:01:00 +0000

Yes, we’re looking for more progress in this arena — needs to be more cost competitive.

By: 3xE - energy storage

3xE - energy storage — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 09:59:00 +0000

But there are aleady energy storage solutions build for private users:
http://3xe-electric-cars.com/energy-storage/home-energy-storage-information
and for solar/wind industry:
http://3xe-electric-cars.com/energy-storage/energy-storage-systems-information

It is existing technology.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 20:54:00 +0000

Craig Severance calculated that wind stored as pump-up hydro would cost about $0.18/kWh. And that was back when wind was more expensive than now.

Aquion is going into production with sodium-ion grid storage batteries which they project will give us $0.06/kWh storage, $0.11/kWh stored wind. They predict being able to bring the price of storage down to $0.015/kWh.

If someone has the storage price for A123 you could cut that approximately in half. A123 recently announced their new formulation doubles 100% DoD cycles from 1,000 to 2,000. That spreads cost over twice as many use cycles.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 20:33:00 +0000

It really is just a question of leveling the field. Assume for a minute we use the Harvard study for cost, yea it leaves out climate change cost, but you got to start somewhere. So first remove all coal and oil loop out, hand out, give back, etc. Then add externals, current US cost $500m/year. Start tax at 10%, then raise each year for 20 years. 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, ….., 100%, 110%, …210%. While it would never raise $1050m/year in US, because use of coal oil would drop, you would see a ton or wind/solar/storage be installed in that time frame.

Remember that the $0.05kwh would be closer to $0.30 externals added in, and wind/solar even with storage beats that hands down.

For a more detailed write up, look back to the carbon tax write up post. Yes have to add some cost to imported products from countries not using carbon based energy, but on well.

By: Ronald Brak

Ronald Brak — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 03:07:00 +0000

I will also mention that while cheaper storage would be great it’s not actually necessary. A rich country like Australia could make its electricity sector carbon neutral with little pain at current energy storage costs. Alternatively, CO2 released into the atmosphere from burning natural gas could be removed and sequestered..

By: tibi stibi

tibi stibi — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 08:50:00 +0000

this is a very interesting post. battery information is at this moment the most important because i see it as the last hurdle.
i hope to see an article which will show costs of the larger ev battery’s over time (like the above graph) and which will go up to 2012 instead of ending at 2005.

keep up the good work!

By: Dimitar Mirchev

Dimitar Mirchev — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 04:43:00 +0000

Probably second hand EV batteries will be used for storages before they totally die. And then we will recycle!

By: Ronald Brak

Ronald Brak — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 22:23:00 +0000

Cheap storage would be very useful, but even without it a large proportion of electricity can come from renewable sources. In South Australia we get over a third of our electricity from wind and solar without any storage. South Australia exports electricity to the neighboring state of Victoria which is a huge electricity sink, but even if South Australia’s electricity exports from all souces including natural gas are removed from the figure, wind and solar still supply about 27% of our electricity. And as solar is load following, as it expands we will be able to increase the amount of electricity we get from renewables further.