Potential Step Change In Battery Technology

[cuthound]

Automotive lithium ion battery costs are already under $400 per kWh. The target is about $100 per kWh by 2020.

 

According to this site

 

http://www.scrapcarkings.com/toyota-prius/scrap-toyota-quote/

 

a replacement Toyota Prius battery (4kW) costs £1750, plus £300-450 shipping, plus £750-1000 installation. Potentially £3200 or £800 per kWh.

[Paul C]

According to this site

 

http://www.scrapcarkings.com/toyota-prius/scrap-toyota-quote/

 

a replacement Toyota Prius battery (4kW) costs £1750, plus £300-450 shipping, plus £750-1000 installation. Potentially £3200 or £800 per kWh.

 

Those costs are eye-watering but not massively far away from the quoted cost of a replacement DPF (all Euro 4 diesels have them, approx 2006 onwards, and they all wear out and need replacement around 100-120k miles) of £1000-1500. And the key thing is, the aftermarket trade has embraced this area and a non-OEM DPF can be around £400-500 fitted. The economy of scale isn't quite there yet for the aftermarket, but the first (and second) generation Toyota Prius and Honda Insight are approaching the age where an owner might be its 2nd or 3rd owner, and is potentially facing those costs. So it can only be a matter of time before we see "reconditioned" batteries available (indeed, I believe even the manufacturer's are - they recycle the old worn out ones and re-use many parts of them) from the aftermarket; £450 shipping for a 100lb item is daft; and the fitting cost will be driven down too.

[PaulG]

 

Well yes and likewise the energy involved in extracting, transporting and refining the oil isn't taken into account in fuel economy figures. But it's the grid that's inefficient, not the EVs. Importantly, with internal combustion engine vehicles you're stuck with most of their inefficiency (and emissions) whereas as we retire thermal plant over the coming decades and replace it with renewables, the grid will only become more efficient (and cleaner).

"retire thermal plant and replace with renewables".

 

In yer dreams!

 

So-called "renewables" are unreliable and (ridiculously) expensive.

[Jambo]

According to this site

 

http://www.scrapcarkings.com/toyota-prius/scrap-toyota-quote/

 

a replacement Toyota Prius battery (4kW) costs £1750, plus £300-450 shipping, plus £750-1000 installation. Potentially £3200 or £800 per kWh.

 

That's retail so heavily marked up. I'm referring to the price that the vehicle manufacturers pay.

[Paul C]

 

Well yes and likewise the energy involved in extracting, transporting and refining the oil isn't taken into account in fuel economy figures. But it's the grid that's inefficient, not the EVs. Importantly, with internal combustion engine vehicles you're stuck with most of their inefficiency (and emissions) whereas as we retire thermal plant over the coming decades and replace it with renewables, the grid will only become more efficient (and cleaner).

 

It can be taken into account with the Petroleum Equivalency Factor, because that's what it is - so called "well to wheel" energy consideration. Certain efficiencies may not be taken into account in the specific case of determining the factor for CAFE regulation requirement, because its seeking an equivalent to fossil fuelled cars, which is the original basis of CAFE.

[Jambo]

"retire thermal plant and replace with renewables".

 

In yer dreams!

 

So-called "renewables" are unreliable and (ridiculously) expensive.

 

Well it's already happening. A load of coal plant is being retired this decade and renewables are growing quickly. They generated just shy of 20% of UK electricity last year and 25% in the second quarter of this year.

Edited November 3, 2015 by Jambo

[Paul C]

 

Well it's already happening. A load of coal plant is being retired this decade and renewables are growing quickly. They generated just shy of 20% of UK electricity last year and 25% in the second quarter of this year.

 

 

There's mileage (excuse the pun) in offshore wind and - maybe in the future - tidal. But I don't think solar power is going to be much of a help, especially in the UK. I can't see renewables dominating any time soon but its nice to have its percentage benefit.

[Jambo]

It all helps but solar's absolute top end potential is limited to about 10% of current annual demand (and that would involve a heroic effort) and it obviously doesn't contribute to meeting the winter peaks at all.

 

Offshore wind is the biggie for the UK but pleasingly it looks like tidal is going to get a pretty good shout as well with the Cardiff lagoons looking increasingly likely to go ahead which should mean further lagoons dotted around the country

[PaulG]

 

Well it's already happening. A load of coal plant is being retired this decade and renewables are growing quickly. They generated just shy of 20% of UK electricity last year and 25% in the second quarter of this year.

That's all very well until there's no wind on a dark night in the winter.

For example, the wind energy being generated in the UK at this precise moment is 0.3GW, or 0.82% of the total, so the lights would be going out right now if we relied on this.

Coal would have reduced irrespective of renewables as gas plants are cheaper to run and more efficient.

Having said that, coal still provides 31% of UK power generation.

The coal plants that are scheduled to close are one third of the available capacity, so coal will still have a large part to play in the energy mix.

[Jambo]

I'm not suggesting we're going to achieve 100% renewables - we're going to have to be some thermal plant to cover periods of low renewable supply but those days are the exception rather than the norm.

[Robbo]

Fossil fuels are very dense in energy, renewable energy won't be able to replace a good percentage of it. Nuclear of one form or another is the only real solution.

[cuthound]

Tidal power is the only viable alternative energy supply that doesn't suffer periods of low or nil output.

 

So far only Norway has invested heavily in it. Once the numerous technological challenges have been solved I would expect it and nuclear to provide mostvofvpur coreower.

 

The efficiency of the grid can only be increased by reducing volt drop. As they already distribute at between 25,000 and 400,000 volts there is little scope for a signifcant increase in affordable efficiency until affordable superconductors become available.

[Justme]

When I retired from the critical power industry 2 years ago, lead/acid batteries cost about £1000 per kWh.

 

 

Have you got the decimal point in the wrong place?

 

Or was that industry getting its pants pulled down & shafted with no grease?

 

Even a 110ah 12v nom bat has 1.3kWh in it for less than £100 bigger bats should be cheaper per kWh.

[cuthound]

Have you got the decimal point in the wrong place?

 

Or was that industry getting its pants pulled down & shafted with no grease?

 

Even a 110ah 12v nom bat has 1.3kWh in it for less than £100 bigger bats should be cheaper per kWh.

No the decimal point is in the right place. Unlike leisure boating the critical power industry uses very high quality batteries with much thicker plates, increasingly using pure lead plates, rather than alloyed with calcium or antimony.

 

The larger batteries have muck lower sales than the automotive based leisure batteries, so fewer opportunities for economies of scale.

 

Edited to add the last paragraph.

Edited November 3, 2015 by cuthound

[Justme]

Owch.

[Paul C]

No the decimal point is in the right place. Unlike leisure boating the critical power industry uses very high quality batteries with much thicker plates, increasingly using pure lead plates, rather than alloyed with calcium or antimony.

 

The larger batteries have muck lower sales than the automotive based leisure batteries, so fewer opportunities for economies of scale.

 

Edited to add the last paragraph.

 

You can make a bigger battery, by combining smaller batteries......I believe the Toyota Prius battery, once unwrapped etc, are in fact remarkably similar to "D" cells.

[cuthound]

You can make a bigger battery, by combining smaller batteries......I believe the Toyota Prius battery, once unwrapped etc, are in fact remarkably similar to "D" cells.

The largest single lead acid battery I came across was 15,050 ah. There were five paralleled together giving a total capacity of 75250 ah. You would need a lot of "D" cells, the largest number ones having a capacity of just 1.2 ah.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_battery

 

Edited for spillung

Edited November 5, 2015 by cuthound

[PaulG]

.... we're going to have to be some thermal plant to cover periods of low renewable supply but those days are the exception rather than the norm.

Really? Actually it's happening right now.

This is the result of reliance on "renewables". And if we have more reliance in the future then this is going to happen more often:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/11975069/Power-plant-breakdowns-force-National-Grid-to-issue-alert.html

[cuthound]

Really? Actually it's happening right now.

This is the result of reliance on "renewables". And if we have more reliance in the future then this is going to happen more often:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/11975069/Power-plant-breakdowns-force-National-Grid-to-issue-alert.html

A version of this has been going on for years. It is call TRIAD charging, whereby the National Grid gives companies who have large electrical demands and standby generators a rebate if they are running their standby generators (and thus not taking load from the grid) during the three periods of peak demand in the TRIAD.

 

Companies have to decide when to run and also to balance increased running costs (fuel, maintenance, wear and tear and possibly overtime costs) against the savings, because the three periods of highest demand are not known until the end of the TRIAD season.

http://www.nationalgridconnecting.com/triads-why-three-is-the-magic-number/

 

Edited to remove letters that were pretending to be spaces between words.

Edited November 6, 2015 by cuthound

[PaulG]

A version of this has been going on for years. It is call TRIAD charging, whereby the National Grid gives companies who have large electrical demandscand standby generators a rebate if they are running their standby generators (and thus not taking load from the grid) during the three periods of peak demand in the TRIAD.

 

Companies have to decide when to run and also to balance increased running costs (fuel, maintenance, wear and tear and possibly overtime costs) against the savings, because the three periods of highest demand are not knowncuntilbthe end of the TRIAD season.

http://www.nationalgridconnecting.com/triads-why-three-is-the-magic-number/

Which is bloody ridiculous if you are taking coal plant offline for environmental reasons and then using diesel generating sets to make up the shortfall.

[cuthound]

Which is bloody ridiculous if you are taking coal plant offline for environmental reasons and then using diesel generating sets to make up the shortfall.

I completely agree. It is successive governments way of masking the under-investment in Britain's power industry.

[Paul C]

Which is bloody ridiculous if you are taking coal plant offline for environmental reasons and then using diesel generating sets to make up the shortfall.

 

Not really because the diesel generator is only running for a small percentage of the overall time. The coal plant would be designed and operated to run pretty much all the time.

 

There's also other technologies which allow us to go closer to the "marginal" situation of just enough power generation to meet demand, such as smart appliances eg a fridge which can respond to a request and turn off for an hour or so (safely - without endangering the food); and vehicle-to-grid. They're still a bit away though.

 

Smart metering is with us now, and allows variation of tariff with time of day, which helps with load balancing; and can play a role in a more extensive smart grid.

[Jambo]

Really? Actually it's happening right now.

This is the result of reliance on "renewables". And if we have more reliance in the future then this is going to happen more often:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/11975069/Power-plant-breakdowns-force-National-Grid-to-issue-alert.html

 

Yes really they are the exception. You may have noticed that the UK is generally quite a windy place, but sometimes you get periods of calm like we've had recently.

 

However the wind generation was behaving as forecast (namely very low output) because we're really quite good at forecasting wind. It was the ageing coal plants that caused the sweating at National Grid. From the FT:

 

Seven coal plants suffered shutdowns on Wednesday, with 12 units out of 34 all operating below their maximum. This affected the coal plants at Eggborough, Rugeley, Aberthaw, Fiddlers Ferry, Ferrybridge, West Burton and Cottam — all of which are more than 40 years old — and was three times the amount of outages National Grid normally plans for.

 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b395d762-83cb-11e5-8095-ed1a37d1e096.html

[PaulG]

 

Not really because the diesel generator is only running for a small percentage of the overall time. The coal plant would be designed and operated to run pretty much all the time.

 

There's also other technologies which allow us to go closer to the "marginal" situation of just enough power generation to meet demand, such as smart appliances eg a fridge which can respond to a request and turn off for an hour or so (safely - without endangering the food); and vehicle-to-grid. They're still a bit away though.

 

Smart metering is with us now, and allows variation of tariff with time of day, which helps with load balancing; and can play a role in a more extensive smart grid.

With respect, that's just more "cloud cuckoo land" thinking.

Everything will be OK when we have access to technology that doesn't exist yet, may not work well even when it does exist, or may not be cost effective.

[Jambo]

Tidal power is the only viable alternative energy supply that doesn't suffer periods of low or nil output.

 

So far only Norway has invested heavily in it.

 

Norway is almost entirely hydro powered rather than tidal. As far as I'm aware, there are only two tidal power plants of any size in the world and they're in France and Korea.