[Timo]

Many of you have probably already seen this, or heard about it. When i read it, i thought to myself that this was old news, that it had already been done several years ago. Well, if that's the case, then this is yet more momentum in the energy paradigm shift away from single source production and transmission of electricity (coal, nuclear), and toward a widely diversified system of energy transmission, much like the internet functions today. Everyone reading this post is using the internet. At the present, i am adding to it, and you all are taking something away from it. This relationship will surely be reversed at some point in the future where you will add to to the internet, and i will take something away. This seems to be the inevitable (i hope!) model for the grid of the future, as well. Everyone will (should) be able to add energy to it when they have more than they need, while others take energy from it when they're running short on their ability to produce what they need. This article is about solar paint, while not very efficient by itself is very cheap and can be applied in almost limitless quantities, thus producing large volumes of electricity if spread out over a very wide area. And the thing about this, or any technology, is that it will only get better. The nanoparticles used in this paint might be used eventually in a non-paint formula, a structural component in a conductive material specific for roofing materials. For that matter, a CAR! Paint a car with this stuff and it can regenerate electricity while it drives down the road. Cuss and discuss.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111221211324.htm

[JRP3]

Obvious problems, low efficiency, and if not painted on an optimally located surface facing the sun power output will be even lower. As I figure it currently available 20% or so efficient solar panels on the hood, roof, and trunk of a car might provide around 3-5 miles of travel a day. This paint would do next to nothing unless it can approach 10% or better.

[kublikhan]

Bigger problem: batteries. We currently don't have anything in place that can handle long term energy storage on the scale the grid requires. there has been some interesting steps to solving this problem, but at this point it's still all in the lab, nothing commercially viable yet.

[JRP3]

Solar can and does displace fossil fuel usage during the day already even without batteries, and with an established fleet of EV's in place as well as V2G there would be a readily available bank of batteries already paid for by the consumer. Solar charging while at work and allowing V2G to use a portion of your charge for short period grid support and FR, for which the utilities would compensate you, is a real possibility.

[kublikhan]

V2G is an interesting idea, but it is not without drawbacks. Those batteries were designed for use with typical driver needs in mind. Not providing load leveling services to the grid. Increased cycling will reduce battery life, possibly voiding your warranty. And it's a pretty far from providing the storage needs of a national grid powered by renewables.

My utility recently unveiled a similar program, paying us grid users to power down during peak hours. Basically they would pay us a small amount of money if we allowed them to shut down our AC during peak load times. The amount of money they would pay us for this "service" was a pittance. It did not even come close to paying for, in my mind, the hardship of going without AC during the scorching summer months. I would expect a similar level of compensation for my V2G contribution. I would not want to shorten my battery life by getting paid a pittance for this service either.

I am all for using renewables to displace fossil fuels. But I think we have to recognize that if we are truly talking about a new energy paradigm powered not by reliable fossil fuels but instead by intermittent renewables, we are talking about a truly epic sized battery here.

But solar and wind suffer a serious problem in that they are not always available. There are windless days, there are sunless nights, and worst of all, there are windless nights. Obviously, this calls for energy storage, allowing us to collect the energy when we can, and use it when we want.

So what would it take? We’re not a nation tolerant of power outages. Those big refrigerators can spoil a lot of food when the electricity drops away. A rule of thumb for remote solar installations is that you should design your storage to last for a minimum of three days with no energy input. Even then, sometimes you will “go dark” in the worst storm of the winter. This does not mean literally three days of total deprivation, but could be four consecutive days at 25% average input, so that you only haul in one day’s worth over a four day period, leaving yourself short by three. So let’s buy ourselves security and design a battery that can last a week without any new inputs (as before, this is not literally 7 days of zero input, but could be 8 days at 12.5% average input or 10 days at 30% input). This may be able to manage the worst-case “perfect” storm of persistent clouds in the desert Southwest plus weak wind in the Plains.

Running a 2 TW electrified country for 7 days requires 336 billion kWh of storage. This battery would demand 5 trillion kg (5 billion tons) of lead. A USGS report from 2011 reports 80 million tons (Mt) of lead in known reserves worldwide, with 7 Mt in the U.S. That’s still not enough to build the battery for the U.S. alone. What about cost? At today’s price for lead, $2.50/kg, the national battery would cost $13 trillion in lead alone, and perhaps double this to fashion the raw materials into a battery (today’s deep cycle batteries retail for four times the cost of the lead within them).

I focus here on lead-acid because it’s the devil we know; it’s the cheapest storage at present, and the materials are far more abundant than lithium (13 Mt reserves worldwide, 33 Mt estimated global resources), or nickel (76 Mt global reserves, 130 Mt estimated land resources worldwide). If we ever got serious about building big storage, there will be choices other than lead-acid. But I nonetheless find it immensely instructive (and daunting) to understand what it would mean to scale a mature technology to meet our needs. It worries me that the cheapest solution we have today would break the bank just based on today’s cost of raw materials, and that we can’t even identify enough in the world to get the job done.

The lesson is that we must work within serious constraints to meet future demands. We can’t just scale up the current go-to solution for renewable energy storage—we are yet again fresh out of silver bullet solutions. More generally, large scale energy storage is not a solved problem. We should be careful not to trivialize the problem, which tends to reduce the imperative to work like mad on establishing adequate capabilities in time (requires decades of fore-thought and planning).

A Nation-Sized Battery

[JRP3]

Some clarification, shallow cycling of an EV battery will not noticeably degrade it's cycle life. V2G grid support for FR and occasional peak leveling would only take a very small amount from any individual pack, so even if the financial compensation were small the impact to your pack would be even smaller. On the other hand helping to keep the grid up that you are drawing from is in itself a form of payback. Grids usually collapse because of short term peak loading, V2G supporting those short term loads keeps the grid stable.

Regarding that article, you can't compare reserves of lithium to reserves of lead for a few reasons, there is in fact very little lithium in a lithium battery, lithium batteries are obviously lighter so comparing tons of resources is not accurate, and lithium batteries last far longer than lead acid, so the materials used are used more efficiently and at a potentially lower life cycle cost. The charge cycle is also more efficient with lithium, and the useable capacity is greater.

I do agree it is a daunting task ahead of us. Personally I expect to use the lithium pack in my EV as backup storage when it no longer meets my range needs in my car, in 10-15 years, or if something significantly better and cheaper comes along in that time period and I feel like upgrading.

[kublikhan]

Some clarification, shallow cycling of an EV battery will not noticeably degrade it's cycle life. V2G grid support for FR and occasional peak leveling would only take a very small amount from any individual pack, so even if the financial compensation were small the impact to your pack would be even smaller.

The makers of the EV cars cite battery degradation as a valid concern. If they are telling me increased cycling of my battery to maintain the grid is not a good idea, I would not be so cavalier about the degradation that can occur to the battery.

The Vehicle-to-grid potential of Honda’s full hybrid vehicles is unexplored, but Honda is doubtful of using them to power homes. "We would not like to see stresses on the battery pack caused by putting it through cycles it wasn’t designed for," said a Honda spokesman. "Instead, they should buy a Honda generator that was made for that purpose."

Why doesn't every electric car do that? "It adds cycles to the battery, which shortens its life," said John Clark, former CEO of V2Green and now a member of Gridpoint's corporate development group.

An Environmental Defense representative stated: "It’s hard to take seriously the promises made for plug-in hybrids with 30 miles (48 km) all-electric range or any serious V2G application any time soon. It’s still in the science project stage."

Also, shallow cycling a V2G system for occasional peak leveling is a far cry from a New Energy Paradigm that the OP was referring to. That would require orders of magnitude more energy storage capacity than that provided by a V2G system used for occasional peak leveling.

On the other hand helping to keep the grid up that you are drawing from is in itself a form of payback. Grids usually collapse because of short term peak loading, V2G supporting those short term loads keeps the grid stable.

I'm sorry but the "take it for the team" argument is just not enough to justify what you are proposing. You are asking me to purchase an expensive electric vehicle, of which the battery is a large component of the price, and then to degrade it's battery life so the "team"(grid) works better. I am not altruistic enough to damage the expensive batteries in my EV so the utility has an easier time with load leveling. I am sure I am not alone in this view. It would probably be cheaper and more efficient for the utility to use a battery specifically scaled and designed for this task anyway.

Regarding that article, you can't compare reserves of lithium to reserves of lead for a few reasons, there is in fact very little lithium in a lithium battery, lithium batteries are obviously lighter so comparing tons of resources is not accurate, and lithium batteries last far longer than lead acid, so the materials used are used more efficiently and at a potentially lower life cycle cost. The charge cycle is also more efficient with lithium, and the usable capacity is greater.

The author chose lead as an example because it is the cheapest, most abundant of the 3 battery technologies mentioned. If he had done the comparison with lithium instead, the figures would be even more outlandish. Besides, lithium is not the greatest fit for grid storage anyway. One of lithium's main strengths is it's incredible power density. But power density is irrelevant for grid storage. Cost is a much more important consideration. You can use a battery the size of a building as long as it was cheap to build and maintain. Still, I would have preferred the article looked at other battery technologies as well such as a vandium flow battery, sodium-sulfur battery, etc. Although I imagine similar challenges would have been encountered when those technologies were scaled up as well.

Thus far, utilities have actually gone a different route: building backup gas fired power plants to operate during power sags from renewable resources. I guess at this point it is actually cheaper to build a fossil fueled power plant than it is to build a battery with enough capacity to store energy to last for long periods of power sags from renewable resources.

[JRP3]

The makers of the EV cars cite battery degradation as a valid concern. If they are telling me increased cycling of my battery to maintain the grid is not a good idea, I would not be so cavalier about the degradation that can occur to the battery.

The Vehicle-to-grid potential of Honda’s full hybrid vehicles is unexplored, but Honda is doubtful of using them to power homes. "We would not like to see stresses on the battery pack caused by putting it through cycles it wasn’t designed for," said a Honda spokesman. "Instead, they should buy a Honda generator that was made for that purpose."

Why doesn't every electric car do that? "It adds cycles to the battery, which shortens its life," said John Clark, former CEO of V2Green and now a member of Gridpoint's corporate development group.

An Environmental Defense representative stated: "It’s hard to take seriously the promises made for plug-in hybrids with 30 miles (48 km) all-electric range or any serious V2G application any time soon. It’s still in the science project stage."

A hybrid really has too small a pack for meaningful V2G, that's probably what they are talking about. An actual EV sized pack is much larger, and I'm sorry but I've seen actual test data that shows shallow cycling to have virtually no effect on pack life. A123 has data showing cells cycled only 10% of capacity lasting more than 100,000 cycles. That means negligible impact on your pack. Interestingly enough the cells that Honda is actually using in their FitEV are Toshiba Scib cells, extremely high cycle life cells similar to Altairnano's. They will outlast the vehicle.

Also, shallow cycling a V2G system for occasional peak leveling is a far cry from a New Energy Paradigm that the OP was referring to. That would require orders of magnitude more energy storage capacity than that provided by a V2G system used for occasional peak leveling.

Fair enough, V2G is just part of the picture.

I'm sorry but the "take it for the team" argument is just not enough to justify what you are proposing. You are asking me to purchase an expensive electric vehicle, of which the battery is a large component of the price, and then to degrade it's battery life so the "team"(grid) works better. I am not altruistic enough to damage the expensive batteries in my EV so the utility has an easier time with load leveling. I am sure I am not alone in this view.

Probably not, but eventually understanding will spread when battery packs last much longer than people realize. At one time people thought electricity would leak out of a socket if something weren't plugged in. I understand if you don't want to take my word for it but I'm not making this stuff up.

The author chose lead as an example because it is the cheapest, most abundant of the 3 battery technologies mentioned. If he had done the comparison with lithium instead, the figures would be even more outlandish. Besides, lithium is not the greatest fit for grid storage anyway. One of lithium's main strengths is it's incredible power density. But power density is irrelevant for grid storage. Cost is a much more important consideration. You can use a battery the size of a building as long as it was cheap to build and maintain.

Not exactly. The structure to house such a battery will be substantial, even more so with a heavy, poor energy density chemistry such as lead. Also, lifetime cost is the real number that must be looked at. The lithium pack in my car is 3 times more expensive than a lead pack but will last more than 3 times as long, making it cheaper in the long run. Real estate is also a substantial expense in many areas.

Still, I would have preferred the article looked at other battery technologies as well such as a vandium flow battery, sodium-sulfur battery, etc. Although I imagine similar challenges would have been encountered when those technologies were scaled up as well.

Jay Whitacre has a new startup Aquion developing a carbon sodium grid battery http://www.aquionenergy.com/technology

Thus far, utilities have actually gone a different route: building backup gas fired power plants to operate during power sags from renewable resources. I guess at this point it is actually cheaper to build a fossil fueled power plant than it is to build a battery with enough capacity to store energy to last for long periods of power sags from renewable resources.

Yes that is currently the case.

[kublikhan]

Probably not, but eventually understanding will spread when battery packs last much longer than people realize. At one time people thought electricity would leak out of a socket if something weren't plugged in. I understand if you don't want to take my word for it but I'm not making this stuff up.

I don't think you are making it up. I think I read somewhere that GM is planning on having v2g features standard on it's next generation Volt. I actually like the idea of charging EV's at night when demand is low, it helps balance out the grid. I am a bit more leery of letting the grid suck power from my EV during the day. But I would at least be open to the possibility. The devil is in the details.

Not exactly. The structure to house such a battery will be substantial, even more so with a heavy, poor energy density chemistry such as lead. Also, lifetime cost is the real number that must be looked at. The lithium pack in my car is 3 times more expensive than a lead pack but will last more than 3 times as long, making it cheaper in the long run. Real estate is also a substantial expense in many areas.

Yes, that's why utilities like to look at levelized costs - the cost of installing and operating a system over its expected lifetime. When you look at it from this perspective, pumped hydro and compressed air are far cheaper than lithium. But even these options are expensive and not ideal for widespread use.

1. Pumping Water Is Tried and True. Pumping water to a reservoir to release later to run generators, or pumped hydro, is an old approach and now makes up the biggest slice of the market. Over 127,000 MW of the global energy storage market, or a whopping 99 percent of it, belongs to pumped hydro.

Compressed air is also not so new, and follows far behind pumped hydro with 440 MW. Sodium-sulfur batteries make up a third of the overall installed grid energy storage market at 316 MW, followed by lead acid batteries (35 MW) and nickel cadmium batteries (27 MW). Flywheels, which are spinning discs, take in less than 25 MW, then lithium-ion batteries (which are still expensive) follow with 20 MW. At the bottom of the list are redox-flow batteries with less than 3MW.

2. Overall Too Expensive. The price for energy storage today, in general, is too high for widespread adoption.

3. Costs Vary Greatly. Lithium-ion batteries are among the most expensive choice for utilities that want storage to help them manage the grid and for industrial/commercial applications.

5. The Cost of Energy Systems Over Time. Upfront installation cost isn’t the only metric used to figure out if an investment in energy storage is worthwhile. As with any energy delivery systems, utilities look at the levelized cost of energy – the cost of installing and operating a system over its expected lifetime. EPRI looks at levelized cost for utilities to manage renewable energy generation and their own grid’s supply and demand, and the results show that pumped hydro and below-ground compressed air are the lowest, under 20 cents per kilowatt-hour. Zinc-bromine and zinc-air batteries, around 20-30 cents per kilowatt-hour.

5 Things You Need to Know About Energy Storage

CONCLUSIONS
We showed that the market value of energy storage for short periods of time (under a few hours) is likely to be minimal for grid-scale purposes in areas of high wind penetration. Only low-cost daily storage is easily justified, both from an economic and environmental perspective. At this price differential, the only full-cycle options with a chance of being commercially viable are hydro storage and UPHS(Underground Pumped Hydrostorage). The next closest options to being competitive may be H2 fuel cells, carbon-lead-acid batteries, and AA-CAES(advanced adiabatic Compressed Air Energy Storage) in some favorable locations.

PROJECTIONS OF LEVELIZED COST BENEFIT OF GRID-SCALE ENERGY STORAGE OPTIONS

[JRP3]

To put the V2G storage potential in perspective there are over 200,000,000 registered passenger vehicles in the US, just 5% of that as LEAF type EV's is 10,000,000 x 24kWh packs = 240,000 MWh's of storage potential, 10% of that is 24,000 MWh's of usable storage, already paid for by the EV buyer. Scale accordingly with greater EV adoption, 10%, 20%, etc. Obviously not all vehicles will be available all of the time but most vehicles spend most of their lives parked, and pack size is likely to grow as they get cheaper.

[prajeshbhat]

This article is about solar paint, while not very efficient by itself is very cheap and can be applied in almost limitless quantities, thus producing large volumes of electricity if spread out over a very wide area.

Looks like another boutique item. I am not convinced that a lot of people will have enough income in the future to afford photo-voltaic nano paint. I also don't think a lot of governments will have enough money to fund research on exotic ideas like this.
the process of manufacturing nano-particles is complicated as it is. It may appear to be cheap because of the scale and mass manufacture, just like the process of manufacturing modern micro-processors. Currently they claim an efficiency of 1%. Improving this efficiency will make the process of manufacturing this paint even more complicated and expensive. We have to ask whether this kind of hypercomplex interconnected organization is possible when fossil fuels become unaffordable to a large percentage of the population.

[kublikhan]

To put the V2G storage potential in perspective there are over 200,000,000 registered passenger vehicles in the US, just 5% of that as LEAF type EV's is 10,000,000 x 24kWh packs = 240,000 MWh's of storage potential, 10% of that is 24,000 MWh's of usable storage, already paid for by the EV buyer. Scale accordingly with greater EV adoption, 10%, 20%, etc. Obviously not all vehicles will be available all of the time but most vehicles spend most of their lives parked, and pack size is likely to grow as they get cheaper.

And to put that in perspective of the national grid, that would run the grid for about 3 minutes. V2G is ok for load balancing, but it is not even in the same ballpark for a New Energy Paradigm of a grid run by 100% renewables.

[kublikhan]

My first thought is you should be banned for breaking the forum rules by advertising here. My second thought is you should have your ass removed for wasting my time. And I don't think I can post my third thought.

[JRP3]

V2G is ok for load balancing, but it is not even in the same ballpark for a New Energy Paradigm of a grid run by 100% renewables.

I don't think we can honestly go forward without utilizing LFTR's so I'm not looking for a 100% renewable grid.

[kublikhan]

Mods feel free to delete this and my above off-topic post. For some reason I can't seem to edit my posts in this thread.