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by Aperocky 2421 days ago
Free electricity that turns off half the time and run basically randomly for the other half? Without a battery it’s useless, and you have to pay for that battery. Treating the electric grid as a battery shouldn’t be free. It’s just in this case they found the cost of battery to be greater than the value of the electricity they’re creating.
3 comments

This island uses water as a battery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG4Q4kXal_U , when there's a lot of wind spinning the wind turbines, they pump up water up a mountain, and when it's less windy they let the water fall through a hydroelectric plant...
> Free electricity that turns off half the time and run basically randomly for the other half? Without a battery it’s useless

I can't imagine that's true. Spot instances come to mind.

I keep coming back to electrowinning iron. When I search for papers it looks like people have started working on it again in the last ten years. I think it's not particularly high tech. Intermittent tolerant and scalable.