Environmental Destruction

[old man emu]

8 minutes ago, pmccarthy said:

The big batteries smooth the peak, they can’t store enough to feed the grid. 

I beleive teh interim measure is to smooth the peak. They haven't got to the stage of storing enought to feed the grid right now. (?)

[nomadpete]

8 hours ago, onetrack said:

but no-one ever raged on about the "visual pollution" of windmills, which have existed since the 9th century. No-one complained because the windmills were highly beneficial,

Further, nobody complains about the visual pollution of sprawling outer suburbs, or of massive open cut coal mines (or other mines), or massive power stations (no matter what they burn).

 

Frankly, whether a windfarm is producing or not, I think the turbines are visually nice.

When I drive past a fossil fuelled power station, it just looks like a enormous ugly shed, whether it is on line or dismantled for routine maintenance. 

 

Further, I resent the implication that when a wind farm is idle, it is proof of it's uselessness. Every day the grid shuts down plant and reactivates plant to balance supply to demand. The fact that wind turbies (or steam turbines) are sometimes not turning, is not any indication of their economic viability.

[nomadpete]

3 minutes ago, old man emu said:

I beleive teh interim measure is to smooth the peak. They haven't got to the stage of storing enought to feed the grid right now. (?)

Unfoat this time, chemical storage (batteries) is not capable of major 'carry over' supply to the grid all night.

It does however, provide enough storage for other mechanical generation to take up slack during brief shortfalls.

 

That is why we really need some major storage such as pumped storage.

 

For me, a smallish home battery will tide me over each night until the sun hits my rooftop solar each morning.

 

I suspect that those who can affort it will be steadily installing a battery to complement their existing rooftop solar.

 

We are giving up on trusting our government to provide reliable electricity.

[spacesailor]

My daughter had to have a " smart meter " , & the cost went through the roof for " equipment " .

My house is 50 years old !.  yet I still pay for that meter .

Perhaps it wasn't enough to pay it off .

spacesailor 

[red750]

The thing I like about a smart meter is that the power co website can show on a daily basis how much you've used, what you bill to date is, and estimates what your next bill will be. You can make progress payments so that the actual bill is zero. No bill shock. I wish the gas co could do the same thing.

[Siso]

There is no such thing as free power!

[octave]

11 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

The big batteries smooth the peak, they can’t store enough to feed the grid. 

They do feed power back to the grid.  Whilst each grid-scale battery cannot supply the grid for days, they can help with peak periods, reducing the need for peaker plants. They also reduce curtailment of renewable sources that would otherwise be lost. Another service they provide is arbitrage, whereby they store power when it is cheap and sell it into the grid during periods of high demand/price.

 

I am not saying that we just need to build more batteries and job done.  Grid batteries are part of the solution.   Home batteries are also a contributor, as they become more and more common.