Tesla says its batteries could fix South Australia's energy problems in 100 days - Sensationalist Headlines

[QUOTE]In an elaborate launch in a former power substation in suburban Newport, in Melbourne's west, Tesla Inc said its technology could provide a fix within 100 days. The Californian company's energy products vice-president Lyndon Rive said it could install up to 300 megawatts of grid-scale battery storage in that timeframe at a cost of about $66 million per 100 megawatts "If you had storage deployed during the blackout [in] South Australia you wouldn't have had the blackout," Mr Rive said.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.smh.com.au/business/energy/tesla-says-its-batteries-could-fix-australias-energy-problems-in-100-days-20170309-guum3v.html[/url] I can only find the full interview behind a paywall right now.

As a South Australian working in the energy sector as an analyst: no it won't. It's also completely pointless saying they're $66m/100MW. MW is simply a measure of their peak output power and doesn't represent how much they can actually store. How many MWhr would we get for $66m? I'm betting it's not very much. If the vice-president is so sure of their viability in SA he should put his money where his mouth is and build them himself. I'm so fed up listening to various renewable energy advocates sticking their fingers in their ears and denying renewables have anything to do with our energy crisis, very few of them actually have any energy experience let alone any understanding of the operation of the national electricity market. The only storage solution that might be viable is seawater pumped hydro which is being considered. [b]Edit:[/b] I've explained the issues before: [QUOTE=download;51808169]Woops, forgot about this. The electricity market operates as a gross pool meaning all electricity generated goes into the gross pool and everyone in one region (regions are divided up into states except for the NSW/ACT region) receives the same price for electricity sent out from their connection point. Every generator connected to the grid gives the market operator (the AEMO) their bid. Their bid is essentially at what price of electricity they can switch on for without losing money. Wind farms, as they have almost no ongoing costs (free fuel) ordinarily would have a bid price of zero but because of the RET certificates they actually have a bid price of negative whatever a RET certificate costs which is about A$90/MWhr at the moment. Roughly the bid prices for other generators are: $10-20/MWhr brown coal, $30/MWhr black coal, $50-60/MWhr combined cycle gas, $100-150/MWhr open cycle gas, $200-300/MWhr open cycle liquid fuel and diesel engines. There are slight variations depending on location financial conditions. Hydro is technically a very low cost form of generation but in reality they usually act like a peaking generators as it nets them more money. Here is this merit order for South Australia from several years ago before the Port Augusta power stations shut: [img]http://i.imgur.com/EyH2Twi.png[/img] Using that graph lets say we need to fulfil 3000 MW of capacity, and we'll pretend the brown coal is missing from the graph. 1100 MW would come from wind, 500 MW would come from Pelican point, 200 MW from Osborne, 800 MW from Torrens B and 400 MW of 480 MW capacity from Torrens A. Everyone selling power would be paid the market price dictated by the most expensive generator (Torrens A at about A$70/MWhr). Great everything works! But wait, suddenly the wind changes and you lose 80MW of wind generation! What happens? Ideally at this point you'd get that extra generation from Torrens A - it's the same price as your current generation after all. But you can't; Torrens A uses subcritical steam for power generation and has a rampup rate of about 100 MW [I]per hour[/I]. The plant design means it simply can't react to power level changes that quickly. This is a problem shared by almost all power generators, and is particularly a problem in coal power stations and gas fired steam generators like Torrens A and B. The problem (tough to a less extent) is found in the highly fuel efficient combined cycle gas turbines like Pelican Point and Osborne which are limited to about 400-600 MW/hr. So, if Torrens A can't fulfil the demand the market operator needs to skip the cheapest power generator available and instead go for the generator that can [I]react fast enough[/I]. This means an open cycle gas turbine whose bid price is almost entirely determined by the price of gas. The above graph is from 2012 when gas prices were really low so the cost of open cycle generators wasn't too bad (though that doesn't fix the inefficiency and CO2 emissions problem) but now gas prices are about twice to three times the price they were. As everyone is paid the same price for electricity, all of a sudden your electricity price goes up to ~$150/MWhr or more. Lets look at another scenario. It's a calm day and almost no electricity is being supplied by wind when suddenly the wind picks up. Over a period of 30 minutes almost all wind capacity start generating at full power. The massive oversupply of energy which could damage the grid automatically causes the market operator to drop the price of electricity to negative price. [I]Yes,[/I] that means generators actually have to [I]pay[/I] to generate electricity and companies consuming electricity are paid to consume it. Per the merit order, immediately open cycle generators switch off - they can cycle up and back down in only a few minutes, combined cycle generators reduce turbine power and disconnect from the grid - over the next hour or so they will waste money slowly slowly reducing power to prevent damage to their turbine and steam system, and steam generators (coal and gas) will open up the steam valves and blow steam into the air wasting money, wasting fuel and generating CO2 needlessly. If they choose to shut down it will take many hours to do so as they have to do so slowly to prevent damage. Steam generators now have to make a decision; how long will the wind keep up? The issue here again is ramp-up and ramp down rates. An older coal plant will take 8 hours to shut-down and [I]up to 48 hours to restart[/I], that means if they think the the wind will keep up less than that they'll likely keep burning coal, wasting money and generating CO2 but won't produce any power. A modern coal plant or a gas steam plant will take 8 hours to shut-down and another 8 hours restart, and like the older coal plant will have to decide if the wind will keep up for that long. Meanwhile the negative electricity price means nothing to wind producers as they're really making their money from RET certificates. This wasteful and unavoidable practice is putting coal plants out of business and making it very difficult for combined cycle gas generators who should be protected as they're the most efficient dispatchable generators after hydro available. They also of course can be built anywhere and don't damage fragile river ecosystems. Pelican Point for example until only a few days ago had put half their gas turbines in long-term care and maintenance despite being the most efficient (and therefore cost effective) gas generator in Australia. If you go to the AEMO website and take a look at the new generation construction page you'll see that nearly all new planned capacity after wind is open cycle gas turbines. Open cycle turbines are only viable in high spot price conditions and are horribly inefficient (almost as bad as coal plants). Ideally we would move to a carbon tax system instead of the RET scheme as this would discourage open cycle turbines and coal, and discourage wind when it distorts the electricity market. Damn, this ended up far longer than I thought it would be.[/QUOTE] The solution to this problem is to repeal the RET and introduce a carbon tax instead.

He means 300 MWh of storage. The source misquoted him. Tesla isn't a rich company with free money to give away so they can't really just do it. [editline]9th March 2017[/editline] They already have a similar though smaller project up and running in California. [video]https://youtu.be/Hiu0fb0X3cg[/video]

[QUOTE=Morgen;51934400]He means 300 MWh of storage. The source misquoted him. Tesla isn't a rich company with free money to give away so they can't really just do it. [/QUOTE] You'll have to find a citation for that.

[QUOTE=download;51934415]You'll have to find a citation for that.[/QUOTE] I don't have a proper source available right now. However we know for a fact that the chemistry Tesla is using has a relatively low discharge rate. So let's assume that it is 300 MW of output. Tesla's chemistry is capable of roughly a 25% discharge rate, and so that would mean this project would store 1200 MWh if he really did mean 300 MW output.

[QUOTE=Morgen;51934451]I don't have a proper source available right now. However we know for a fact that the chemistry Tesla is using has a relatively low discharge rate. So let's assume that it is 300 MW of output. Tesla's chemistry is capable of roughly a 25% discharge rate, and so that would mean this project would store 1200 MWh if he really did mean 300 MW output.[/QUOTE] Those are a lot of assumptions.

Forgive my innocence but wasn't the source of the energy problem related to those high voltage lines being knocked out supplying power to the cities?

[QUOTE=Sims_doc;51934557]Forgive my innocence but wasn't the source of the energy problem related to those high voltage lines being knocked out supplying power to the cities?[/QUOTE] No. Please read the report [url]https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Electricity/NEM/Security_and_Reliability/Reports/Integrated-Third-Report-SA-Black-System-28-September-2016.pdf[/url] Section 3.1.1 explains the wind farms stopped generating which lead to the increased flows on the inter-connector which lead to it tripping. The now islanded SA network didn't have enough grid inertia (because it had been displaced by wind power) to buy time for additional generation to come online leading to the collapse of the SA power grid. The power lines nicked down that many people keep pointing to were in the north of the state where there is little generation and little load. The inter-connector is in the south.

Nuclear.

[QUOTE=download;51934594]No. Please read the report [url]https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Electricity/NEM/Security_and_Reliability/Reports/Integrated-Third-Report-SA-Black-System-28-September-2016.pdf[/url] Section 3.1.1 explains the wind farms stopped generating which lead to the increased flows on the inter-connector which lead to it tripping. The now islanded SA network didn't have enough grid inertia (because it had been displaced by wind power) to buy time for additional generation to come online leading to the collapse of the SA power grid. The power lines nicked down that many people keep pointing to were in the north of the state where there is little generation and little load. The inter-connector is in the south.[/QUOTE] Batteries could've automatically kicked in within milliseconds to give them the time they needed. Virtual inertia works well in places batteries have been implemented so far.

[QUOTE=Morgen;51934919]Batteries could've automatically kicked in within milliseconds to give them the time they needed. Virtual inertia works well in places batteries have been implemented so far.[/QUOTE] And would've lasted how long though? Could it have covered the over 600MW being imported from Victoria? It likely would've delayed it for a bit. Then the voltage / frequency separation would've occurred anyway.

[QUOTE=DogGunn;51934913]Nuclear.[/QUOTE] Too bad it's expensive

[QUOTE=Goberfish;51934959]Too bad it's expensive[/QUOTE] And building a new power plant isn't?

[QUOTE=DogGunn;51934979]And building a new power plant isn't?[/QUOTE] Tesla's proposed solution is not a power plant. It's not generating any power. It simply stores power and then discharges it as needed. That helps smooth out the load, work as emergency backups, and reduces carbon emissions by replacing old peaker plants needed to deal with the odd spike in load. Batteries are often paired with renewables but it doesn't have to be. $300 million Australian is pretty cheap compared to a nuclear power plant.

[QUOTE=DogGunn;51934926]And would've lasted how long though? Could it have covered the over 600MW being imported from Victoria? It likely would've delayed it for a bit. Then the voltage / frequency separation would've occurred anyway.[/QUOTE] Does it have to last long? It only has bump the grid up a bit until another generator can kick in.

[QUOTE=Morgen;51935019]Tesla's proposed solution is not a power plant. It's not generating any power. It simply stores power and then discharges it as needed. That helps smooth out the load, work as emergency backups, and reduces carbon emissions by replacing old peaker plants needed to deal with the odd spike in load. Batteries are often paired with renewables but it doesn't have to be. $300 million Australian is pretty cheap compared to a nuclear power plant.[/QUOTE] A power plant generates electricity, a battery does not. And peaker plants don't deal with the "odd" spike in loads here in SA, they're running all the time at the moment. It's part of why our wholesale electricity prices are through the roof. [editline]9th March 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=DrDevil;51935025]Does it have to last long? It only has bump the grid up a bit until another generator can kick in.[/QUOTE] There aren't enough dispatchable generators [i]to[/i] kick in on a peak summer's day. The only new competitive generators are open-cycle gas turbines that need a ~$200/MWhr minimum to just start up. It's partly because of capital costs and the low capacity factors. Combined cycle turbines struggle in the current market because of the RET subsidies. It's actually one of the problems we've been looking at at work. [editline]9th March 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Goberfish;51934959]Too bad it's expensive[/QUOTE] The costs are mostly driven by overly burdensome regulators and frivolous anti-nuclear lawsuits. Their tactics are to simply stall as long as possible which makes the plant expensive through interest and paying workers to stand around, then they can turn around and declare nuclear power plants are too expensive. Rinse and repeat.

[QUOTE=download;51935055]A power plant generates electricity, a battery does not. And peaker plants don't deal with the "odd" spike in loads here in SA, they're running all the time at the moment. It's part of why our wholesale electricity prices are through the roof. [editline]9th March 2017[/editline] There aren't enough dispatchable generators [i]to[/i] kick in on a peak summer's day. The only new competitive generators are open-cycle gas turbines that need a ~$200/MWhr minimum to just start up. It's partly because of capital costs and the low capacity factors. Combined cycle turbines struggle in the current market because of the RET subsidies. It's actually one of the problems we've been looking at at work.[/QUOTE] Don't batteries fix all these issues? You don't need to generate more power. You just need to be able to store the renewable energy. In some cases wind turbines are limited or even turned off because there's nowhere for the power to go. Batteries can smooth out that load. You can keep the peaker plants around for emergencies.

For A$300m I could build a prototype 50MWe uranium burning MSR.

[QUOTE=download;51935087]For A$300m I could build a prototype 50MWe uranium burning MSR.[/QUOTE] Good luck doing that commercially.

[QUOTE=Morgen;51935085]Don't batteries fix all these issues? You don't need to generate more power. You just need to be able to store the renewable energy. In some cases wind turbines are limited or even turned off because there's nowhere for the power to go. Batteries can smooth out that load. You can keep the peaker plants around for emergencies.[/QUOTE] If they're cheap enough, sure, but the market at the moment seems to be indicating that they're not despite wildly varying electricity prices. It wouldn't be hard to buy electricity during peak wind hours at $10/MWhr and sell it for $200/MWhr. Wind turbine's aren't turned off, they can keep running down to negative electricity prices. [editline]9th March 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Morgen;51935094]Good luck doing that commercially.[/QUOTE] $6000/kW FOAK if pretty normal for an SMR. Once you've proven the design (FOAK would be quite overbuilt) the cost will plummet. [editline]9th March 2017[/editline] Anyway, I've got work I need to do so I'll respond in the morning.

[QUOTE=download;51935096]If they're cheap enough, sure, but the market at the moment seems to be indicating that they're not despite wildly varying electricity prices. It wouldn't be hard to buy electricity during peak wind hours at $10/MWhr and sell it for $200/MWhr. Wind turbine's aren't turned off, they can keep running down to negative electricity prices. [editline]9th March 2017[/editline] $6000/kW FOAK if pretty normal for an SMR. Once you've proven the design (FOAK would be quite overbuilt) the cost will plummet. [editline]9th March 2017[/editline] Anyway, I've got work I need to do so I'll respond in the morning.[/QUOTE] Cost will go down as Tesla builds out the gigafactory. Negative electric prices are something you really should avoid. Batteries help you avoid that because they will just be sucking up the excess power. Eventually the wind turbines would be turned off if the excess power had no where to go. Negative prices just encourage people to use it more to avoid that. Another benefit is also construction time. If we can get a huge battery storage substation up and running in 3 months that's a lot quicker than most other methods.

Depending upon how volatile the grid is, it always seemed frivolious to use any battery backup methods for anything other than small grids or point-of-service applications (i.e. UPSs for homes, like the powerwall). Doesn't matter what chemistry you use, the volatility of the grid will be the major factor in determining the lifetime of the battery. Most Lead Acids or Li-Ion (I mention lead acid b/c the ability to deep-cycle is popular in UPSs) only have cycle lives of [URL="file:///C:/Users/Lorne/Downloads/li_ion_battery_life__TechnicalSheet_en_0514_Protected.pdf"]1000[/URL] to [URL="http://www.batterypoweronline.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Lead-acid-white-paper.pdf"]2000 charges[/URL] which means a MTBF can range from 5 years to 10 years. Hell even the [URL="http://blog.evandmore.com/lets-talk-about-the-panasonic-ncr18650b/"]Panasonic 18650 cells that Tesla use[/URL] only have a cycle life of [URL="https://www.math.ubc.ca/~wetton/papers/NCR18650B.pdf"]~900 charges before they reach 50% capacity[/URL]. The cost benefit just doesn't seem valid here when that money could be used towards plants or generators that have a much longer MTBF. Batteries are only patching a symptom.

[QUOTE=LoneWolf_Recon;51935185]Depending upon how volatile the grid is, it always seemed frivolious to use any battery backup methods for anything other than small grids or point-of-service applications (i.e. UPSs for homes, like the powerwall). Doesn't matter what chemistry you use, the volatility of the grid will be the major factor in determining the lifetime of the battery. Most Lead Acids or Li-Ion (I mention lead acid b/c the ability to deep-cycle is popular in UPSs) only have cycle lives of [URL="file:///C:/Users/Lorne/Downloads/li_ion_battery_life__TechnicalSheet_en_0514_Protected.pdf"]1000[/URL] to [URL="http://www.batterypoweronline.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Lead-acid-white-paper.pdf"]2000 charges[/URL] which means a MTBF can range from 5 years to 10 years. Hell even the [URL="http://blog.evandmore.com/lets-talk-about-the-panasonic-ncr18650b/"]Panasonic 18650 cells that Tesla use[/URL] only have a cycle life of [URL="https://www.math.ubc.ca/~wetton/papers/NCR18650B.pdf"]~900 charges before they reach 50% capacity[/URL]. The cost benefit just doesn't seem valid here when that money could be used towards plants or generators that have a much longer MTBF. Batteries are only patching a symptom.[/QUOTE] Tesla uses a different chemistry in their energy storage products, and they are using the new cell format already. Previous 18650 chemistry had a warranty of 3650 cycles. New cells have an unlimited cycle warranty, don't believe they have disclosed how many it can handle. Better sources are coming out now, which confirm Lyndon said 300 MWh. [QUOTE]We don’t have 300 MWh sitting there ready to go but I’ll make sure there are, […] We could install everything and get it up and running within 100 days ... It makes no sense to duplicate infrastructure. By the time it gets up and running, the technology will be obsolete. It’s going to take years. […] And it still doesn’t address the problem. It’s a bandaid. We don’t need to build more transmission lines. …The only reason we’re building more transmission lines is to address congestion that may happen a few times a year. Storage can fill that gap. Use the existing infrastructure (and add battery storage) and it solves the problem. It really does. And it’s more cost effective. Why go the other path?” ... With large centralised storage at sub-stations, and solar and storage (in homes and businesses) it will be near to impossible to take down the grid [/QUOTE] It seems some rich guy is interested in making it happen. Not really sure who he is though. [Media]https://twitter.com/mcannonbrookes/status/839762954887180289[/media]

[QUOTE=Kabstrac;51935944]He's some software guy; an Australian billionaire[/QUOTE] He is the CEO for the company which owns Trello and Jira.

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;51936231]He is the CEO for the company which owns Trello and Jira.[/QUOTE] Atlassian are fucking monsters in the IT sector. That guy almost certainly has the money to do whatever the fuck he wants just to see what happens. I'd take him up on the bet if I really felt my technology could do what I claimed it could, after all he could easily help fund expansions past the initial bet if impressed.

[QUOTE=Morgen;51935217]Tesla uses a different chemistry in their energy storage products, and they are using the new cell format already. Previous 18650 chemistry had a warranty of 3650 cycles. New cells have an unlimited cycle warranty, don't believe they have disclosed how many it can handle. Better sources are coming out now, which confirm Lyndon said 300 MWh. It seems some rich guy is interested in making it happen. Not really sure who he is though. [Media]https://twitter.com/mcannonbrookes/status/839762954887180289[/media][/QUOTE] So $660/kWhr. That's a lot of cycles to make back your initial investment. I can't imagine the IRR on that is great.

[media]https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/840032197637685249[/media] its srs [media]https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/840096176678420481[/media] [media]https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/840101692087582720[/media]

[QUOTE=Wii60;51939368][media]https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/840032197637685249[/media] its srs [media]https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/840096176678420481[/media] [media]https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/840101692087582720[/media][/QUOTE] That price is very different from the OP

[QUOTE=download;51939412]That price is very different from the OP[/QUOTE] Musk is talking about at the pack level, Lyndon was talking about full install including inverters, labor, shipping and whatever.

[QUOTE=Morgen;51939488]Musk is talking about at the pack level, Lyndon was talking about full install including inverters, labor, shipping and whatever.[/QUOTE] Musk saying $250/kWhr to the guy who's offering to foot the bill is pretty deceptive then. It's pretty clear the guy wanted to know how much he's spending, not just the price of one component.