| You missed a lot of things. It is always claimed that the conversion to 80-100% renewable energies fails because of "non-existent" & "too expensive" storage options. At the same time, most arguments against #VisionZero are reduced to lithium-ion batteries, their costs and their environmental balance. Here is an overview of chemical and mechanical storage options that are affordable & feasible with current technology. ETH Zurich Energy Storage Handbook: "From today's perspective, the Energy Strategy 2050 is technically feasible. The necessary storage technologies are available - today on the market, marketable or demonstrably realisable."
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000445597 Siemens Gamesa ETES: Electric Thermal Energy Storage https://www.siemensgamesa.com/products-and-services/hybrid-a...
https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/heute/vulkansteine-als-stroms... With these storage systems, in which electricity is converted into heat and this heat is converted into electricity via steam, significant parts of existing power plants can continue to be used! DEMIKS - Decentralised energy storage by means of integrated kinetic rotational mass storage (in connection with wind turbines) Long name, proven concept increased to 500 kilowatt hours
https://www.energiesystem-forschung.de/forschen/projekte/dem... Pumped storage power plants. Normal in Austria, Switzerland, Norway, for Germany only in a roundabout way https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/technologie/nordlink-su.... Continue building pumped-storage power plants:
https://twitter.com/senortenor/status/1450777953844006913?s=... https://www-ingenieur-de.translate.goog/fachmedien/bwk/energ... Storage Keeping the grid reliable as solar photovoltaics and wind power (both with accurately forecastable but large variations in output) come to dominate electric generation requires changes in markets, institutions, operations, habits, and mental models. This has proven feasible in both theory and practice, as illustrated by national statistics’ reports of 75 percent renewable coverage of annual electricity consumption in Scotland (2018), 72 percent in Denmark (2017, domestic production only), 67 percent in Portugal (2018), 40 percent in peninsular Spain (2018), and 38 percent in Germany (2018). Most such grids sometimes achieve over 100 percent renewable supply, just as Japan’s southern island of Kyushu reported 76 percent peak solar coverage on 23 April 2017 1008, and Shikoku 102 percent on 3 May 2018 1009, despite Japanese utilities’ insistence that far smaller renewable fractions will crash the grid. No “storage miracle” is needed, though some seem to be emerging. Whether solar, fossil-fueled, or nuclear, no generator needs 100 percent backup, because one generator does not serve one load; rather, all generators serve the grid, which in turn serves all loads. The grid is designed to back up failed plants with working plants, so varying solar and wind power output are backed up by a diversified portfolio of other variable renewables, dispatchable renewables, or other resources. Solar and wind power don’t need massive batteries so they can produce power steadily like big thermal plants; rather, at least eight classes of grid flexibility resources (A) besides bulk electrical storage and fossil-fueled backup are proven, available, cost-effective, and sufficient.(B) We don’t and needn’t yet know all details of their ultimate mix as renewables rise toward 100 percent of generation; for now, we need only know that ample and affordable integration options exist.(C) As climatologist Prof. Ken Caldeira says, “Controversies about how to handle the [electricity] endgame should not overly influence our opening moves.” (A) Efficient use; 2. unobtrusively flexible demand; 3. modern forecasting of variable renewables’ output (often more accurately than demand); 4. diversifying those variable renewables—wind and solar PV—by type and location; 5. dispatchability—integrating wind and solar PV portfolios with the other renewables (not counting big hydropower, which could also be integrated more effectively than now and with cogeneration that must run anyhow to satisfy its thermal loads; 6. distributed thermal storage worth buying anyway, or managed thermal storage in buildings’ existing thermal mass; 7. distributed electrical storage worth buying anyway (e.g. smart charging and discharging of electric vehicles bought to provide mobility); 8. hydrogen, now most likely from renewable electricity. (B) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10406... (C) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403211... https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/The-World-Nuclear-Industr... |
"Thermal Energy Storage" is just an experiment no one know if can work in production and on scale, "Pumped storage power plants" is classic mountain hydro, VERY effective, but need mountains and water, for instance just Swiss and Norway who NORMALLY have plenty of both this summer have had significant issues due to water shortages, they import more energy to backup, energy coming mostly from nuclear (Sweden and France) and a bit from oil&gas, "kinetic rotational mass storage" are classic flywheel UPS, something we have almost abandoned because of costs and very small effectiveness, they do not "store" for long, like ultra-condensers they can be just quick stabilizer who can cover 1-3' short spikes letting other systems have time to ramp up or down, hydrogen is a recurrent myth some try to sell, nothing we will ever seen on scale etc.
Long story short: you collected some scientific evidence, that's scientific, positive, but in practice is just a theoretical game. I've experience the same in my small setup: in theory microgrid stability is assured, Victron even say their MultiPlus is a pure-sine-wave UPS quick enough for the entire house and under certain condition most of the time is true, unfortunately there are also some other conditions, not so rare, and that's why in practice I have to keep small UPS for home rack and desktop FORMALLY uselessly redundant.
At grid scale is even worse: we predict enough to speculate how much energy we will produce with a very good precision but we can't predict instantaneous variations, or to simplify given an hour timeframe we can predict what's up in the means in such hour, but we can't predict many peaks during that time. Keeping the grid practically stable so far means rolling blackouts: when too many loads appear we cut some to lower the total load keeping the frequency up enough, when too many goes down we cut-out some generators to keep the frequency low enough, statistically it's very well, we guarantee stability in 99% of the case, blackouts tend to be just few minutes per localized area etc. In practice is just like 1.x℃ global warming is a mean value that means for some areas +10/+15℃ in summer, witch have a VERY DIFFERENT face at such zoom level.
Your operator can say "hey we just have had a ∑ of 99.99999% of reliable works on scale, unfortunately the nearby hospital have had to put many UPSes to avoid the "just a minute" blackouts that happen weekly and heavily impact their IT tools. Some again optimistically respond "but hey, you just need a PowerWall, a vehicle-to-load application!" yes, on scale. Try to compute how much backups we need for a manufacturing plant with CNCs operating 24/7/365 or just for apartments where there is no room to install such systems physically. Doing so it's very USA: being optimistic, project yourself and fix on the go or fail and restart. For a company who can fail that's work, for a society is a recipe for disasters so ample that's CRIMINAL trying at such speed and manner.
Being "smart" like having a parallel data network quick enough, with enough bandwidth, with enough IT safety and reliability, with all electricity producer and consumers just tell "I need xkW in y time" and get "we ramp up production for you" theoretically can be a game changer, I do not even imaging how such monster can be built and maintained. Not only: we need such system on scale, witch means substituting 100% off all equipment. Did you have experienced some large-scale changes like shifting from analog terrestrial television or radio to digital? Now try to imaging how much we need electricity 24/7/365 respects of TV/radio.