from NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
The plans of mice and men!
From the Telegraph:
The thousands of batteries being deployed to stabilise Britain’s electricity networks could bring down the grid, government experts have warned.
Ministers have been warned of the risk of a crash if operators all try to charge up their batteries at the same time to avoid an energy shortage.
A report by the so-called Panel of Technical Experts handed to Miatta Fahnbulleh, the new Energy Secretary, said: “Some thought needs to be given to the way battery energy storage systems are likely to behave in a capacity market notice situation, as operators may then have an incentive to charge in advance to fulfil their obligations. This may result in a fast descent into a stress event.”
A capacity market notice is a critical warning issued by the National Energy System Operator (Neso) when it spots a looming electricity shortage caused, for example, by low wind.
They have historically been used to tell gas-fired power stations, which are paid to be on standby for such events, to get warmed up and ready.
However, battery pack operators have recently begun breaking into the same market as the move away from stable generation from fossil fuels makes it more difficult to balance the grid. These batteries must be fully charged to work effectively.
The experts raised concerns that operators would spot a looming spell of high demand or low wind-powered generation and start charging up simultaneously in a move that could overwhelm the grid and trigger the very shortage they were trying to avoid.
The warning follows a substantial increase in the number of batteries deployed to back up and stabilise the UK’s power networks.
UK power grids have about 7GW of batteries in place with a collective output slightly greater than all five of Britain’s nuclear power stations. By 2030, UK grid battery capacity is expected to exceed 20GW.
Full story here.
The whole business case for battery storage is to recharge when electricity prices are low, and sell when they are high.
Given the algorithms driving operation, that will tend to lead to most of that 20 GW wanting to recharge at the same time – such as midday on a sunny day.
As a consequence, electricity will be drained from the grid. Just as bad, they will all tend to discharge in the evening when supply is short and prices high.
The problem is that, just as with embedded wind and solar power, NESO have absolutely no control over battery charging/discharging. Worse still, it is not even visible to them. If a gas plant broke down, they would immediately know and be able to take corrective action.
But if lots of batteries start charging simultaneously, they would just see it as an increase in demand, which they had not forecast.
As each chapter of this looming debacle is unveiled, we see that they are all inter-related and the direct consequence of the ill-thought out dash to intermittent, weather dependent energy.
Wind and solar power is not dependable, so the “answer” is to build more. But building more leads to massive surpluses at times, while still not addressing the underlying problem of supplying electricity when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine.
So, we must build lots of battery storage. Which in turn destabilise the grid even further!
This is what happens when you let politicians and Net Zero zealots design an energy system.
As so often, Kathryn Porter sums it up best:
“Batteries are very expensive. A better option is to not build intermittent generation and then we wouldn’t need batteries or the extra grid infrastructure or the backup delivered by the capacity market”
FOOTNOTE
I am not going to let the Telegraph get away with this howler:
UK power grids have about 7GW of batteries in place with a collective output slightly greater than all five of Britain’s nuclear power stations.
As so often, they are confusing CAPACITY with OUTPUT.
Battery storage is typically no more than an hour’s worth. You cannot compare their output with that of our nuclear fleet, which runs 24/7.
Whereas nuclear provides around 12% of UK power, one hour’s storage is enough for 10 minutes, after which it would need recharging.
Those batteries need to be recharged … off the grid, not from the grid. Every battery array needs a dedicated farm of Solar PV to recharge them so the grid isn’t overburdened!
And in winter in the UK in a dunkelflaute you can forget solar and batteries.
Better still, junk wind and solar. You know it makes sense.
Natural gas, coal and nuclear power could be used to backup the backup batteries.
All the coal fired stations were blown up with virtue seeking glee. The nuclear stations are being allowed to go past their design life with all the risks of reliability, Gas is much the same so where is the backup ?
And the test fracking wells were concreted over.
Less of a problem than it might appear. You can drill through concrete.
It was a ‘statement’ by the powers that be.
We could also back up the backup batteries with backup backup batteries.
(backed up with backup backup backup batteries)
Backed up by hamsters running in little wheels.
…or convicts?
That point needs to be slapped up here on a daily or more often basis.
Let’s hope the answer isn’t to burn more North American clearcut forests as wood pellets. They have an inclination to do things like that with tax subsidies on both sides of the pond to keep it going well past any lobbyist fairytale pitch.
Who needs a reliable grid when you’re already uncompetitive in so many sectors from sky high electric rates, taxes, regulation, and political patronage.
That’s not the way it works. The grid either has too little power supplied to it so that generation needs to be ramping up, or too much power supplied to it, meaning generation needs to be ramping down. Thats the nature of the grid and it becomes even more pronounced when renewables are present.
So the upshot is that when there is too much energy being put onto the grid, the best place for that to be managed is by charging batteries. Here is today’s Australian grid. I’ve highlighted the battery charging where you can see it happens on and off all day.
The solution is to eliminate redundant, part time, weather dependent energy sources and stick with reliable generation to power the grid.
Solar is excellent for off grid applications but dismal and redundant when attached to the grid.
The solution is to eliminate the finite resource that is fossil fuels to power the grid.
Solar is absolutely fine for on grid use and there are many millions of homes that are largely energy self sufficient with privately owned rooftop solar and a supporting battery.
They reduce the load on the grid, add redundancy and defer the need for large scale generation addition in the face of energy use growth.
They were telling us last week that NESO can’t model electricity inputs from unpredictable “renewables” and hence can’t forewarn of shortages.
So which is it? They can’t issue a capacity market notice; or they can, but the notice would trigger a crash?
But it’s full speed towards net zero either way.
So which is it?
A wing and a prayer.
Batteries can be treated like any other load/source. The inputs and outputs can be controlled based on commands from the grid controlling entity, if they chose to do so. But that is the key, It is technically possible to open and close the grid breakers to a battery(s). Whether there are contracts allowing this and metering to monitor the power flows are another story.
And BTW, even though power flows to batteries are variable due to charge state, temperature, etc., all of that can be presented as a ramp rate typical of any generation source. Power companies deal with that every second.
Battery boom ….
followed by smoke ?
😉
and mirrors
Oh no. That might have been the backup backup backup backup batteries.
This is a foreseeable danger, which means it really isn’t a danger so long as Britain doesn’t run it’s grid like South Africa, which is the real danger.
We know the weather with pretty high precision 3 days in advance, which means battery operators can charge at any any time over that period. And honestly, we know the weather with good enough precision 7-10 days in advance. These ridiculous schemes try to use real-time pricing, which means the best payout will happen when charging happens on holidays, weekends, and evenings (or impossibly for Britain, when there’s a solar surplus, HAH!), and experience shows that is mostly what happens.
The circumstances where the expected shortage comes with short notice and is wide-spread likely means significant baseload went down unexpectedly during a high demand event. That does happen, but that’s usually called a “major weather event”, which I should hope didn’t sneak up on anyone at the MET office, and by second order NESO. So again we come to this hypothetical where we have to assume one way or the other, was there time to prepare or was there no time to prepare? I’m running up against the fantastical scenario where the system has catastrophically gone down, and now everyone wants to charge their batteries and make the situation worse, exactly when the electricity would be most expensive.
Situations where the electricity is improperly priced, and the grid is improperly run does happen in some places. But those place have, shall we say, visual markers that the system might be unreliable, which Britain still lacks for the most part at NESO. At least for now…
Environment Canada is 42% accurate on one day forecast, according to auditor.
Bully for Canada?
? The point being that “We know the weather with pretty high precision 3 days in advance” and “42% accura[cy] on one day forecast” are inconsistent. Is the Met Office much better than Environment Canada at forecasting?
? and by deduction, one might say my point was the Met office does have high precision, considering I wasn’t talking about Environment Canada.
I’m also not sure why this group is so salty about my point, the pricing signals and the dire need for electricity are contradictory within the same time frame. It’s kinda how the grid has always worked.
Sorry it contradicts the pile-on.
Your belief in raw propaganda is sufficient to power at least one wind generator.
Thanks, but I believe facts and history. It’s kinda on my side here.
Pretty good is that they can guess the temperature to within 2 or 3 degrees, or the degree of cloudiness to within 20%, much less where those clouds will be. Predicting wind power is even more hit and miss. This is nowhere good enough to predict whether you will have enough excess solar/wind power to charge your batteries.
If you thought I was unaware of that, I question you ability to read or have understanding what I wrote. Do I really have to quote myself from above there? Let me help you then:
Your post is laced with unintended or unidentified assumptions.
Do a critical review and see how many you can self-identify.
I’m afraid I’m quite aware of my assumptions and yours. The question isn’t whether an argument makes assumptions but whether the assumptions are accurate. But nice try at deflecting.
Wait, I know! Diesel-powered generators to charge up the backup batteries. Boom! Done!
Well, pioneering renewables test lab South Australia is still using diesel generators when the wind ain’t blowin’, the sun ain’t shinin’ and the batteries are flat.
S.A. ‘transitioned’ to renewables back in 2014.
70% now apparently.
But those diesel gennies are still needed.
At this rate, the installed windmills, solar panels & batteries will be up for replacement before the gennies need their next oil change.
So the entirety of the future storage doesn’t last an hour of UK Summer demand and just over a half-hour of Winter demand? Yep, that sounds like a fully operational nuclear reactor…
An hour? The UK has a bit more than 13GWh of installed battery capacity. At no time of year does our demand dop below 20GW. Usually it is in the 25-35GW range.
“Future storage” is in another universe. I will pay attention when I get there. But then of course we will also have future demand.
Simple arithmetic.
13 GWh. 26 GW load.
Assume 100% utilization of battery capacity (not 80% or lower).
30 minutes to battery depletion.
I believe this supports your post.
We were promised £300 off the electric bill by Millivolt. How can providing an intermittent energy source which has to have full backup with a second non intermittent source ever be cheaper than the original single source. And adding batteries is more about frequency stabilisation than providing any meaningful power, as demonstrated by all the BESS applications right after Spain’s blackout gave Neso a scare.
Britain may be setting itself up for a blackout which will make the Spanish power outage look like a minor glitch. In the aftermath of the this disaster, Milliband will blame anyone else for the mess that he created.
It caught my attention that NESO does not control battery charging. Who does? I don’t know much about the British electricity supply system. Here in the US, however, one of the worst things we did was to deregulate the utilities and separate generation from transmission and distribution. We seem to have mitigated at least some of the problems with separation by having a regional grid system. How do the Brits handle this?
So many things risk overwhelming the grid. 😕
Well at least that’s offset by the Underwhelmingly pathetic prophetic abilities of Climate Catastrophists
Heat pumps? EV charging? For starters.
“Batteries are very expensive.” I keep reading that sodium batteries are going to be almost free staring next month.
Sodium is less expensive than lithium and there are massively larger amounts of sodium to be extracted for use.
However,, the price of sodium, like the price of lithium, does not define the cost. Full bill of materials, labor, yield, organizational overhead (including taxes and facilities management), test, and many others are all part of the total cost.
Li: $21.64 per kg. (lithium carbonate) and $60 per KWh in batteries.
AA 2 AHr, 3.6 V = 7.2 WHr
Na: $0.56 per kg. (sodium carbonate) and $19 per KWh in batteries.
AA 2.4 AHr, 1.5 V = 3.6 WHr
Ya gonna need a bigger grid.
Unfortunately, our government take advice from people like this, possibly because he has the word ‘power’ in his name:
https://youtu.be/3ud1hRAL64I?t=4084
(the link should take you to the start of the piece, if not it’s at 1:08:00 from the start) Let me know how much of this claptrap you can take before throwing something.
Anything that can stabilize the grid can also destabilize it.
It depends on how many DEI appointees control it.
I was trying to find a way to say this without coming off as racist.
Given anything you do or say can be called racist if you diverge from the political orthodoxy, there comes a point when you just have to stop caring.
Do you suppose that if you built your grid as:
Base Load + Load Following
OR
Base Load + Load Following + Solar + Wind + Batteries + Backup for Wind + Backup for Solar + Regulations on Battery Charging
One of these is simpler, cheaper, and more reliable than the other. But which one?
But the first one is “dirty”, apparently.
(Personally, I have never “seen” electricity that was “dirty”. In fact, I have never “seen” electricity at all. Other than lightning of course. Although I’ve certainly “felt” electricity a few time when I’ve been careless where I put my fingers 🙁 ).
When I was a Mercedes-Benz mechanic I once made the mistake of touching the distributor of a running engine in a 450SEL. The zipper in my trousers completed the circuit through the fender. I leave it to you to deduce which of my anatomical features bore the brunt of the highly unpleasant shock.
Ummba, Mr Hoffer…it’s Klimate reeducation Kamp for you
Details, details. details…oh, well. Which is gonna get here first-Hell or high water?
I believe the word “boom” is missing a “m”
that was the sarcy and short comment, the more lenghty and reality based one is:
Oh heavens no, another prime example of an ecotards “one fits it all “simple” solution to a self inflicted idiotological problem.
Well batteries requiere a full charge as well as float charge to not depreciate before time. Lead acid that totals roughly 13 hours, BummBumm-lithium less although who has experienced on his cellphone how rapid the “full capcity” goes to hell?
So yes, batteries are generally “shit”, the reason why we don’t care is the comparatively smalk scale and price at which we (used to) put them to “good” use.
Well now amplify your anger and swearing when you’re changing the 70 bucks battery (starter, cellphone, rechargable womanpleaser whatever) by a factor of at least a 100….and that’s because I’m “conservative” in choosing the number.
Ah yes, multiplied that bitching by households/users/car owner…, not to mention time… ehm I rest my case, kinda sick and tired of it.
Upside, lot’s of 12 gauge use blessed me with “a bit of hard of hearing” regarding idiots bitching, just FYI.. and as always ITS 😉
God I how I miss my rifles…sarc?
You are still speaking about li-ion batteries, or li-polymer batteries. Current default for solar installations are Lifepo4/LFP batteries. Those are charging to 90% full speed then absorbing/floating to 100% in about hour. They doesn’t mind to stay at 100% and have around 4-6 time more lifetime cycles than li-ion.
They are expected to last 10-15 year, I have at home 4.5 year old LFP battery still in service.
Thanks to my house roof top solar and 24kWh house battery I could yesterday enjoy my small pool, 7 cubic meters of water to be balmy 32C instead of around 26C. Also my AC in house is running non stop on solar and battery.
I have also DYI Lithium Titanate batteries, 3kWh installed, those should last over 20 years and 20 thousand cycles. I was curious about this battery chemistry, so I tried and I like them.
They should be safe, no smoke, no fire, energy density 2 to 3 times worse than li-ion, but still better than lead acid batteries. 2-3 times more pricey than LifePO4.
Personal choice = personal freedom.
Well done.
UK power grids have about 7GW of batteries in place with a collective output slightly greater than all five of Britain’s nuclear power stations.
As so often, they are confusing CAPACITY with OUTPUT.
No, They are not.Batteries are capable on demand of supplying full capacity to the grid. Just not for very long
Average duration of BESS in UK is just under 2 hours. Are they not just a money making enterprise – buy electricity when it is cheap sell when it is not cheap?
Yes, like pumped storage hydro power. Renewables provide times with amazingly cheap power. I think you can figure out where this trip is going…
Unfortunately Renewables provide far more times with absolutely Zero Power Production regardless of quantity of installed capacity.
“I think you can figure out where this trip is going..
Yep, the total collapse of the UK grid. !
Yes they do, even negatively priced power, and you still have to pay the Solar Farm for the production as well as pay a neighboring state/country to take the surplus. So that Free Power costs you twice.
The only time wind and solar are cheap, are those times when nobody needs it.
Yes, the exact same model we had with base load power plants during the night. Instead of reducing output they sold it for cheap – pumped hydro storage bought it and resold it during daily peak hours. The exact same pattern, only difference is when the low prices occur.
The reason why night storage heating is a thing.
As batteries age, the intrinsic voltage turn on delay, the voltage drop when a current load is applied, increases. One has to wonder that this will do to grid stability.
Each individual cell inside a large battery is connected in a grid of conductors that must be bonded (welded, soldered) to form the circuit of the entire battery. As current passes through the bonds, as temperatures rise and fall, the bonds age and the internal series resistance of the battery increases, which increases the losses.
I know. Battery SME for 50 years.
We currently use 24 cell, NiMH batteries in our payloads.
In the past, with Li primaries, passivation was a serious issue and age plus shelf-life made that phenomenon worse.
Batteries, unspecified, are capable on demand of supplying full capacity to the grid.
Batteries have a maximum output current. It varies due to a number of factors, which we will ignore for the moment.
The question is your definition of full capacity. Is this the capacity required by the grid?
On an aside, batteries typically can provide 1.5C output current where C is the capacity defined in AHr. Some are higher, some lower, but it is a good rule of thumb. In other words, a battery with a 1 AHr capacity can output 1.5 A for 40 minutes.
Battery capacities are best defined in terms of ampere-hours (AHr) or less informative watt-hours (WHr).
GW tells you only the instantaneous current output multiplied by the terminal voltage, but does not tell for how long it takes to charge or discharge.
No where to be seen is the definition that GW also means power output for 1 hour. Maybe it does, maybe not. Or maybe insiders know that it is a 4 hour system (or some other) but to the casual reader, it is unknown.
Why is this important?
Without a definition of the duration of the expected peak demand or low output, one really cannot assess if the capacities noted are adequate. Hint: They likely are not.
Data centers are predictable, batteries not so much.
One might even call it “Britain’s Big Bad Battery Boom”.
Wind and solar don’t work stop building them. Fire up all fossil fuel and nuclear generators, build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators, remove all wind and solar from the grid.
To the geniuses that wrote this article: doesn’t it matter WHERE the batteries are located to cause a grid problem?
I’ll let you figure out the rest.
It has always appeared to me that the advocates for batteries have assumed that the batteries are always fully cherged at the moment that their backup power is needed. Isn’t that so?
Assume…. you know the rest.
“if operators all try to charge up their batteries at the same time to avoid an energy shortage.”
Needs explaining.
With batteries: shouldn’t one be giving battery capacity in GWh instead of GW?
I have the impression, the journalists are using the wrong units.
Not a false impression.