[IshKebab]

It's always windy somewhere. You just need to expand the electrical grid.

We are still far from the point where we have enough wind that any of it goes unused.

Also what is the cost of storing that energy? It's so much cheaper to generate it might still come out cheaper.

[thebean11]

Storing it is extremely expensive, at least with any currently available technology.

This is apparent looking at how much energy prices change throughout the day / month based on usage and cost of production, and how predictable those changes are.

If storing energy were cost effective you could make a killing buying low and selling high on the national grid.

[pydry]

Storing became cost effective last year: https://ieefa.org/ieefa-grid-scale-battery-costs-have-reache...

>If storing energy were cost effective you could make a killing buying low and selling high on the national grid.

Maybe not a killing but you could make $$$ yes. This is starting to happen.

[tpmx]

You're not understanding that correctly. They are talking about things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve

This giant (world's largest!) and very expensive thing provides short term-relief against grid outages. The batteries last for ~1 hour and it can still only provide electricity for something like 50k homes.

(It's used for more economically useful things, like stabilizing the grid in emergencies.)

The periods between high and low/zero wind are in the order of 200-300 hours (at least where I live).

[pydry]

And it was built in 2017. And battery prices have plunged since then. And it's not the only project mentioned.

[tpmx]

> It's always windy somewhere. You just need to expand the electrical grid.

Doubt. Weather systems/patterns are often extremely large.

> Also what is the cost of storing that energy?

Insanely high compared to the cost of producing it.

For one common naive case: Storing the energy in Li-Ion batteries in e.g. a Tesla Powerwall: $437/kWh.

[zizee]

> For one common naive case: Storing the energy in Li-Ion batteries in e.g. a Tesla Powerwall: $437/kWh.

How did you come up with that number? Total cost of the battery divided by its capacity?

Since you do not dispose of the battery upon first discharge, the true cost should be amortized across the thousands of cycles it would go through during its lifetime.

Batteries are still far from economical in many situations, but there are many situations where they now make sense. They are also getting cheaper all the time, and as they do, so will the range of applications increase.

[tpmx]

Oh, you don't understand the difference betweeen power and energy...

The context here is storing energy for the days when it's not windy or when it's cloudy.

> Batteries are still far from economical in many situations, but there are many situations where they now make sense.

This a not about your Tesla, or what you feel about Tesla and batteries in general.

[zizee]

>> Also what is the cost of storing that energy?

> Insanely high compared to the cost of producing it.

Ok, how about you share your numbers on the cost of production for 1kwh.

Your use of "insanely high" leads me to believe you are comparing the capital outlay for batteries, vs operating costs of a power station. It's important to compare like for like.

[alacombe]

Texas was 5 minutes away from a total grid failsafe collapse if the grid frequency had continued to drop, and it just happened that pretty much all of North America was undergoing high usage. Uncontrolled energy are not sustainable at scale.