Microblog Memes

There have been proposals for technology like this. Putting a motor above an abandoned mineshaft and suspending a weight. Charged by raising the weight, discharges by lowering against a load.

The issues is the capacity ends up being pretty tiny, not really at a grid level.

You’d need a TON of motors to get to something a grid could actually use to stabilize, and by then the economics don’t work out. Let alone the actual space requirements of that many motors

Additionally, a lot of the advantages of batteries come from local storage, where you don’t need to transmit the energy long distances anymore, and these “natural” batteries tend to take up a lot of space.

A better and more accessible form of “natural” energy storage are already in most homes. Heat pump water heaters in homes could do things like make the water extra hot during solar hours, when power is cheap, so they can make it until the next morning without turning back on.

Or with better building envelopes (insulation) we could run more cooling during solar, maybe even make a ton of ice. Then later in the day, when solar drops and the grid load peaks, you can still cool the building with ice.

No, peak generation in most countries is in the late afternoon when people come home from work, the ac kicks on, people start to cook + do other things around the house. You typically see a double- peak, one in the morning and one in the evening, although it varies based on the seasons. I'm an engineer who works in renewable energy and the stated problem is real- solar generation doesn't line up very well with grid demand. You can work around this with energy storage but that is an expensive solution

Isn't peak consumption around middle of the day for most countries?

I can't speak to other countries, but in the US peak electricity demand generally occurs in the early evening.

Mfw electricity being cheap to generate is not economical

Cheap electricity is great for consumers, but not necessarily for producers. Some people might say, "well, screw producers," but even if you take profit out of the equation, electric utilities need to be able to at least cover their expenses, and you can't do that if the amount of electricity you're generating relative to the demand is so high the price actually goes negative (meaning the utility is actually paying the consumer). Again, that's good for consumers, but I'm sure you can see how that's not a sustainable business model. And, like I mentioned before, it would be one thing if utilities could make up for this by selling for a higher price during peak, but by that point the sun is either setting or already set, depending on the time of year, so there's just no solar electricity to sell, at any price.

I mean, "economy" fundamentally is the allocation of limited resources, if something is limited at a point when it's needed, then economical doesn't sound like the wrong word to use? (I'm aware economical means cheap, BTW)

Yeah you can do that. Not everyone does

that requires specialized equipment other than the battery. you need to generate AC from the DC of the panels and battery, and the easiest way to do that at the right frequency and phase is to follow the grid. that's why most solar installations stop providing power without a grid connection; you need a wave to sync with.

if you want to be truly independent you need your own wave forming equipment. and not the cheap stuff either, like the 12V inverters for cars that give out square waves. that's fine for like a drill, but plug a computer into that and there's a chance it fries. it won't charge, at least not for long.

also you need extra safeguards to not fry electrical workers when they disable the grid and your power comes flowing the other way.