this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2024
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Green Energy

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[–] reddig33 13 points 7 months ago (5 children)

I’d like to see these spread through neighborhoods, rather than at one central location. It would cut down on power outages due to storms/downed lines.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago

I guess they built it there so it can make use of existing infrastructure without too many major changes .

[–] DoomBot5 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That drives up maintenance significantly. You suddenly need your technicians driving around everywhere servicing small units rather than at one central location making sure the main unit is online.

[–] reddig33 4 points 7 months ago

🤷‍♂️. Like technicians aren’t already driving around servicing transformers and downed power lines. It’s not like a battery pack requires daily maintenance.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Both is better. Centralised is more efficient for maintenance and cost. Distributed allows less transport cost for the power and less chance of total failure, ut more chance of individual failure.

One of the issues with transitioning is the grid is designed with large plants in mind. Using existing infrastructure more efficiently makes renewables more attractive for investment, which hastens the transition.

[–] mipadaitu 3 points 7 months ago

Large scale batteries tend to need to be connected to the grid to function, they need to sync with the grid frequency, and can't run by themselves.

[–] evenglow 1 points 7 months ago

Home battery banks are a thing. EVs also work. We are moving towards virtual power plants and micro grids just that most power grids were not designed for power consumers to also be power generators. They are working through the technical standards like OCPP. ...

The large-scale electrification of vehicles, fleets, and marine ports presents a threat to the grid, and as such it is crucial to bring chargers into the equation of energy demand and response systems. The combination of the OCPP with the Open Automated Demand Response (OpenADR) protocol or the Open Smart Charging Protocol (OSCP) turns a charger into a flexibility provider that can react to changes in demand response (DR) within a distributed energy resource (DER) energy ecosystem. Accordingly, an uninformed charging process can be converted into a smart technique, which is able to throttle or postpone a charging process based on currently and locally available grid capacity.

[–] thesporkeffect 8 points 7 months ago

NV Energy CEO Dough Cannon

That's the real highlight here

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

The Company's comprehensive offerings include proprietary gravity-based storage, battery storage, and green hydrogen energy storage technologies.

It looks like they used lithium ion batteries for this but I'm not confident in that. I only poked around their website a little, tho. I'm curious what gravity based would look like. Maybe I should poke around more!

[–] ABasilPlant 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

https://youtu.be/6Jx_bJgIFhI

Tom Scott: Britain's largest battery is actually a lake

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

That's really cool! I'm not sure where this fits in on the renewable spectrum (i could have missed it) but I haven't heard about this. Thanks for sharing!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Isn't gravity based the thing where the mechanism is, crudely, a rock tied to a rope gets lifted, then the mechanism locks it, and when energy is needed the lock releases, dropping the rock and spinning the turbine?

Takes more energy to lift the rock, but the lock costs almost no energy, and when energy depletes, the lock releases, drops the rock, and offers reserve energy.

Basically all electricity generation, but a rock and a rope.

[–] halcyoncmdr 6 points 7 months ago

Hydroelectric Dams are a gravity based battery. Crudely, water falling spins the turbine generating electricity. One of the few power generating methods that doesn't involve first turning water to steam to spin the turbine.

[–] cucumber_sandwich 5 points 7 months ago

There's several gravity based things. Some lift a piston of rock, some drop weights down old mine shafts...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Maybe? I've also read about using water storage. I really don't know much about using gravity.