Energy storage

[Lensman]

Right. That is why hydrogen is looked at as a type of battery, a way to store the energy which should be produced more cleanly. It's a very clean battery.

Nuclear power can be used to create hydrogen. Essentially creating a 100% clean loop that is nearly limitless.

Some routes can be driverless (sort of like monorails work but trackless) Some can be flex routes with human drivers to meet shifting demand. IE special events.

@MisterPenguin, @jt04, and @DisneyCane, I thought you'd be interested in this new energy storage project I recently read about:

World’s Largest Renewable Energy Storage Project Announced in Utah

SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 30, 2019-- Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) and Magnum Development today joined The Honorable Gary Herbert, Governor of Utah, to announce an initiative to launch the Advanced Clean Energy Storage (ACES) project in central Utah.

www.apnews.com

Utah Aims to Shatter Records With 1,000MW Energy Storage Plant

The Advanced Clean Energy Storage project would install 1,000 megawatts of energy storage capacity in Utah. Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems will supply the power equipment while partner Magnum Development brings control of a salt cavern formation conveniently located near the transmission...

www.greentechmedia.com

This initiative will develop 1,000 megawatts of long-duration energy storage using four cutting-edge technologies:
* hydrogen
* compressed air energy storage
* large-scale flow batteries
* solid oxide fuel cells

The site is located adjacent to the Intermountain Power Project a nexus of power infrastructure including a soon-to-be-shuttered 2 GW coal-fired Intermountain Power Plant and nearby generation from 305 MW of wind and 600 MW of solar. Most critically, the IPP switchyard connects to the Path 27 500 kV high voltage DC line to Adelanto, CA capable of transmitting 2,400 MW to Los Angeles, Anaheim, Riverside, Pasadena, Glendale and Burbank.

Initially developing enough energy storage to completely serve the needs of 150,000 households for an entire year

I'm not sure if this figure is correct but, if true, it means that this project will store 150,000 x 10 MWh = 1,500 GWh of power which is 100 times the current amount of electricity storage currently deployed worldwide. This is enough to power all Los Angeles County residential customers for a month or all of Los Angeles County for a week.

They should really put an Alternate National Military Command Center nearby. In fact, we should all start thinking about buying a house out there and building a bomb shelter. Lol

 

[DisneyCane]

@MisterPenguin, @jt04, and @DisneyCane, I thought you'd be interested in this new energy storage project I recently read about:

World’s Largest Renewable Energy Storage Project Announced in Utah

SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 30, 2019-- Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) and Magnum Development today joined The Honorable Gary Herbert, Governor of Utah, to announce an initiative to launch the Advanced Clean Energy Storage (ACES) project in central Utah.

www.apnews.com

Utah Aims to Shatter Records With 1,000MW Energy Storage Plant

The Advanced Clean Energy Storage project would install 1,000 megawatts of energy storage capacity in Utah. Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems will supply the power equipment while partner Magnum Development brings control of a salt cavern formation conveniently located near the transmission...

www.greentechmedia.com

This initiative will develop 1,000 megawatts of long-duration energy storage using four cutting-edge technologies:
* hydrogen
* compressed air energy storage
* large-scale flow batteries
* solid oxide fuel cells

The site is located adjacent to the Intermountain Power Project a nexus of power infrastructure including a soon-to-be-shuttered 2 GW coal-fired Intermountain Power Plant and nearby generation from 305 MW of wind and 600 MW of solar. Most critically, the IPP switchyard connects to the Path 27 500 kV high voltage DC line to Adelanto, CA capable of transmitting 2,400 MW to Los Angeles, Anaheim, Riverside, Pasadena, Glendale and Burbank.


I'm not sure if this figure is correct but, if true, it means that this project will store 150,000 x 10 MWh = 1,500 GWh of power which is 100 times the current amount of electricity storage currently deployed worldwide. This is enough to power all Los Angeles County residential customers for a month or all of Los Angeles County for a week.

They should really put an Alternate National Military Command Center nearby. In fact, we should all start thinking about buying a house out there and building a bomb shelter. Lol

Very interesting. Thanks for the links! I hope it works out because this is the type of innovation needed in order to realistically get to a 50% or more nationwide share of renewables in an economical manner.

I assume the quote about "serving the needs" doesn't mean actually storing all that energy. It probably means that the storage capacity will allow 150,000 homes to be powered by renewable energy 24/7/365.

 

[Lensman]

I've been doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations and some research.

The Chevron Phillips Clemens Terminal in Brazoria, TX, stores about a billion cubic feet of hydrogen in an underground salt cavern. This translates into between 5,000 and 20,000 GWh of electricity at efficiencies between 60% and 85% and pressures of between 100 bar and 200 bar. I don't think that facility operates at those pressures, but I haven't been able to find detailed information on it other than the cavern size.

Air Liquide has comissioned the construction of an even larger storage cavern in Beaumont, TX. They're going to use it to store 30 days of hydrogen that they produce from natural gas.

Anyway, the bottom line is that they seem to intend to use giant underground salt caverns to store enough hydrogen to provide 1,000 MW of power for 62 days. Whoa!

 

[DisneyCane]

I've been doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations and some research.

The Chevron Phillips Clemens Terminal in Brazoria, TX, stores about a billion cubic feet of hydrogen in an underground salt cavern. This translates into between 5,000 and 20,000 GWh of electricity at efficiencies between 60% and 85% and pressures of between 100 bar and 200 bar. I don't think that facility operates at those pressures, but I haven't been able to find detailed information on it other than the cavern size.

Air Liquide has comissioned the construction of an even larger storage cavern in Beaumont, TX. They're going to use it to store 30 days of hydrogen that they produce from natural gas.

Anyway, the bottom line is that they seem to intend to use giant underground salt caverns to store enough hydrogen to provide 1,000 MW of power for 62 days. Whoa!

It is good to know (and thank you for doing the research) that all of this "alternative to battery" storage technology is being developed and deployed. Long term it will be extremely helpful for areas to purchase surplus renewable energy from other areas and store it. That way, if there is a lot of wind in the Midwest and they've already filled their storage, New York city can buy the surplus and store it, etc.

Storage is the key for wind and solar long term since the sun only shines during the day and the wind doesn't blow all of the time. Plus as a very long term (probably not in my lifetime) 100% renewable world, storage is a necessity for peak demand. Otherwise you would need many more solar panels or wind turbines and have them throw away their production except when it is needed for peaks.

 

[Lensman]

I found a more definitive article:

MHPS, Magnum Will Build 1-GW Renewable Energy Storage Facility in Utah

Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) and Magnum Development, the owner of a large and geographically rare underground salt dome in Utah, have teamed to

www.powermag.com

Some quotes:

MHPS, meanwhile, is looking to build facilities to convert renewable power from Western power markets into renewable hydrogen, which would then be combusted at a 600-MW JAC-series combined cycle power plant it plans to build with a partner above ground at ACES. ACES will also be outfitted to harness CAES stored at the caverns, and MHPS plans to supplement the facility with solid oxide fuel cells and large-scale flow batteries, to ensure it can store energy 24/7, 365-day and flexibly dispatch as much as 1,000 MW at grid-scale to balance variability from renewables that are increasingly flooding Western markets.

The size of the salt dome “means the amount of storage is virtually unlimited and ultimately constrained by the market demand and technologies that create the power,” the company said.

Browning on Thursday told POWER that the storage capacity would be 24-7. “So if you wanted to convert that to megawatt-hours, you would multiply that by 365 in 24 hours to turn 1,000 MW of capacity into how much storage there is,” he said. MHPS clarified that Browning “was giving an example of a technology that could provide a large amount of instantaneous power.” The 600-MW combined cycle plant powered by renewable hydrogen “could be larger and could provide the full 1,000 MW,”

Remarkably, the project overall is even more interesting and answers more questions than I thought. So the old IPP coal plant I referred to earlier is scheduled for decommissioning and was supposed to be replaced with a combined cycle gas turbine plant. I don't know whether that's still happening, or whether it's essentially been replaced by this project which will build a MHPS combined cycle gas turbine plant that will run off a combination of natural gas and hydrogen, with an eye toward eventually running on 100% hydrogen.

I don't know whether the turbines are built to only burn a fixed ratio or whether there is a range of gas mixtures it can handle, but at any rate it does provide an interesting future for combined cycle gas power plants - that they could be turned into part of a future energy storage infrastructure. This is pretty interesting given that they are currently the most economical baseload power generators in the United States and as of 2018 the largest, at 264 GW capacity.

Interesting stuff!

 

[basingset]

There are many more pros. I totally agree with you. When I bought the Lexus, I didn't expect to be so excited about the hybrid car. I'm in love with its sleek, aerodynamic, low drag coefficient design. Thanks to the nature of the electric drivetrain, the cabin offers extra space. But the battery, importantly, consists of high energy density lithium-ion cells. But in a couple of years, hydrogen-powered cars will be produced. That will be a sensation. My thinking has changed dramatically. I have now realized that there are energy companies that do not inflate prices. Just as cars don't have to spend a lot on recharging, neither do homes. It helped me make sense of it https://www.simplyswitch.com/energy/guides/best-and-worst-energy-companies-2021/ this article.