[Chris2048]

Are lithium batteries ever used at grid-scale?

I though the point was that the high energy-density was convenient for mobility, but poor on most other metrics, including manufacturing complexity, stability, and safety.

Grid-scale wouldn't need to care so much about energy density versus stability and maintenance, in which case lead-acid, or compressed-gas storage should shine.

[epistasis]

Currently in the Texas grid interconnection queue, there are more GW of lithium ion storage than there are of new gas generation (figure labeled Exhibit 2):

https://rmi.org/clean-energy-is-canceling-gas-plants/

Lithium ion is currently king here, it's easy and fast to deploy, with lots of off the shelf components, and cheap.

Texas' grid composition responds really quickly to economic changes, because anybody can connect and start making money. More highly regulated grids have been much slower to adapt to the new reality of cheap storage.

[ben_w]

Does this count as grid-scale?

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a31350880/elon-musk...

For your other points, I believe you are correct, but the reason lithium gets used anyway is because it’s now really cheap compared to the alternatives.

[vlovich123]

As Tesla has demonstrated Lithium-ion is pretty critical for balancing out a grid that has renewables in the mix. It drastically cuts costs and improves efficiencies because it can detect instability in the grid more quickly and arbitrage different power sources more efficiently (+ coal plants take a while to start up so it’s an important stop gap).

[selectodude]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve

Australia has a few now.