{"id":273074,"date":"2023-08-12T14:42:39","date_gmt":"2023-08-12T12:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=273074"},"modified":"2023-08-12T14:42:42","modified_gmt":"2023-08-12T12:42:42","slug":"the-real-world-costs-of-backing-up-weather-dependent-electricity-generation-with-battery-storage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=273074","title":{"rendered":"The Real World Costs Of Backing Up Weather-Dependent Electricity Generation With Battery Storage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From The MANHATTAN CONTRARIAN<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Francis Menton<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A recurring question at this blog has been, how do the world\u2019s politicians plan to provide reliable electricity without fossil fuels? Country after country, and state after state, have announced grand plans for what they call \u201cNet Zero\u201d electricity generation, universally accompanied by schemes for massive build-outs of wind and solar generation facilities. But what is the strategy for the calm nights, or for the sometimes long periods at the coldest times of the winter when both wind and sun produce near zero electricity for days or even weeks on end?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When pressed, the answer given is generally \u201cbatteries\u201d or \u201cstorage.\u201d That answer might appear plausible before you start to think about it quantitatively. To introduce some quantitative thinking into the situation, last December I had a Report published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation titled \u201cThe Energy Storage Conundrum.\u201d<\/a> That Report discussed several calculations of how much energy storage would be required to get various jurisdictions through a year with only wind and\/or solar generation and only batteries for back-up, with fossil fuels excluded from the mix. The number are truly breathtaking: for California and Germany, approximately 25,000 GWh of storage to make it through a year; for the continental U.S., approximately 233,000 GWh of storage to make it through a year. At a wildly optimistic assumption of $100\/kWh for storage, this would price out at $2.5 trillion for California or Germany, $23.3 trillion for the U.S. \u2014 equal or greater than the entire GDP of the jurisdiction. At more realistic assumptions of $300 – 500\/kWh for battery storage, you would be looking at 3 to 5 times GDP for one round of batteries, which would then need replacement every few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even these numbers wildly understate the real world costs of storage that would be needed. Here\u2019s why: the calculations that I presented were based on actually data for particular years, and what storage would have been needed to make it through that year. For example, here is the chart from my Report of the annual charge and discharge cycle for a collection of batteries that would have been sufficient to get California through the year 2017 on a wind\/solar system, fossil fuels eliminated, without running out of electricity:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As you can see, the calculation assumes that California would run its batteries right down to zero in March with the expectation that they would then begin to recharge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if you are planning a system that must have 99.9% reliability, you can\u2019t just look at one year and assume you can run your storage down to zero. You need to consider the worst-case year. This is particularly true in the case of an electricity system consisting only of wind and solar generation plus batteries. If the batteries run down to zero, then what? It is not at all obvious how to restart. You might need to dedicate the generation exclusively to charging the batteries for weeks or even a month or more before you can have confidence that you can restart without immediately crashing again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, in the real world, how would you run such a system prudently?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There actually exists a closely analogous type of system from which we can make inferences of what kind of margins are necessary to assure reliability. That analogous type of system is the system for water supply. The supply of water from a reservoir system, like generation of electricity from wind and sun, is dependent on unpredictable weather. What kind of margins for storage are necessary to assure reliability?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New York City water supply system makes lots of data available to investigate this question. Here are some key data points:<\/p>\n\n\n\n