Talk:Grid energy storage

Broad subject

• Energy storage is a rather broad subject. Frankly, it's so broad I'm not sure what the article can say other than have a taxonomy of various kinds of energy storage.

• Grid energy storage is a more specific problem: maybe I should have titled it grid electricity storage. The problem is to most cost-efficiently match the peaky electricity demand profile to production and storage technologies. The cost efficiency part of the problem makes it different than, say, the problem of electrical energy storage on board the Space Shuttle, or any of a number of possible problems that could be addressed in the energy storage article.

• The grid energy storage article is in better shape than the energy storage article.

Your impetus for requesting a merge may be that the current grid energy storage article doesn't address the grid-connected nature of the problem specifically enough. That's a real problem, of course, but I don't think the answer is to merge the two.

Iain McClatchie 01:38, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Ian. I put up the merge message a while back. At the time it seemed a little redundant, but it's really a pretty good article. So you can remove the "merge" messages, but I would strongly suggest two changes. The first paragraph should start out somethink like:

Grid energy storage is the use of energy storage for the purpose of ...

In other words, put the article title in bold, maike it descriptive, and provide a link to the general "energy storage" article. Mackerm 05:26, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I removed the merge notice, but couldn't come up with good wording to start the article as you suggested. I agree that it is useful to use the article title in a sentence near the beginning of the article, but forcing it can just add pointless words.

It's not just useful, it's required by the Wikipedia:Guide to layout. Mackerm 11:44, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This article needs a lot of work

The article has a lot of mistakes. I fixed the most glaring ones. Most of the rest are about how the grid works and how different energy sources are used. Also, some areas need rewriting, especially the first section (the first section is everything before the "Economics of energy storage"). I think that part of the problem is that people write about how things are in their region. However, the electrical industry varies greatly geographically in the U.S., let alone other countries. For example, in much of the East, coal makes up the majority of the electricity generated, while in much of the West, there are no coal power plants at all. In the Middle East, oil can make up a large percentage of the electricity generated (77% in Egypt in 1999), while the U.S. gets very little of its electricity from oil (about 3%). Natural gas might be used primarily for peaking power in the Eastern U.S. (the article previously said that natural gas plants are peaking plants), but it is used for base load, intermediate (AKA load following) and peaking power in the West. This variation does not mean that an article cannot be written. It just means that the article must be written carefully by knowledgeable people, preferably in collaboration. -- Kjkolb 16:42, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

= This article is also very outdated. Recent advancements in manufacture of Lithium batteries have resulted in rather large installations of banks of batteries capable of discharging multiple megawatts or into grids during high demand. Recent discussions of the Texas rolling blackout will bring people who want to know more about this. I personally read about them at this link: https://egsa.org/Publications/Powerline-Magazine/Archives Gallomimia (talk) 12:56, 24 February 2021 (UTC)Gallomimia at gmail

Please mention the Concrete Gravity Trains used for grid energy storage

Please mention the Concrete Gravity Trains used for grid energy storage. See, for example: http://interestingengineering.com/concrete-gravity-trains-may-solve-energy-storage-problem/ This can enhance the existing section on Gravitational potential energy storage with solid masses. Thanks! --Lbeaumont (talk) 18:23, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

what about ETES?

Siemens build a new pilot for storing heat in lava stones. Hot air will be blown like a hair-dryer and stored into a rock bed. source: https://bizz-energy.com/stein_stromspeicher_von_siemens_gamesa_soll_2019_ans_netz — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.13.41.220 (talk) 09:01, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

The Importance of this topic for the planet

Please somebody who knows about this - we need a section on the history and evolution of the latest technology of energy storage, because many people don't even realise how much the technology has progressed and what difference this can make to the viability of green energy for our societies.

What is the latest on storing wind and solar and what are the implications for greening the energy supply? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.252.104.138 (talk) 09:09, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Anyone can edit this article and there are plenty of sources - for example https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead/2024/11/20/grid-scale-storage-is-the-fastest-growing-energy-technology

so please go ahead and improve it Chidgk1 (talk) 09:12, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

More data needed

The article does not mention:

• how much grid-energy storage you need, in % of the energy production, in a country
• what the share (%) of non-constant grid connected energy forms (i.e. vehicle-to-grid) can be to still be reliable and effective as a whole

--Genetics4good (talk) 15:04, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

@Genetics4good I don't think that's a question that can generally be answered. There's just too many factors involved. One of the main factors being how much variance can be had in the given generators that region or country has. As an example, heating steam with coal, gas, oil, or nuclear, generally takes hours or even days to shutdown or power up. While they can be ramped up or slowed down with a reasonable speed, it is usually these kinds of power stations that cause the need for energy storage. Hydro-electric has the best shutdown/power-on cycle time, at roughly 90 seconds to go from zero to 100%. And of course the new technologies of wind and solar are now nearly always needing a storage medium, as their best generation times are at odds with peak demand. Gallomimia (talk) 22:59, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Actually batteries have millisecond on-off times. There's also storage in the spin of generators and Synchronous condensers, which are even faster, but have very low capacity. GliderMaven (talk) 02:31, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Hydrogen

"The AC-to-AC efficiency of hydrogen storage has been shown to be on the order of 20 to 45%, which imposes economic constraints." What does AC-to AC mean... alternating current to alternating current? Is this the best measure of "efficiency" and can be it applied to other types of storage across the article? S C Cheese (talk) 16:04, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Timescale for use of peakers

Welcome back @Femke,

My sentence about gas peakers was not very good so I understand why you deleted it. But now we only have peakers mentioned for the minute/hour scale. Shouldn’t they be mentioned instead as a competitor to grid energy storage for the day/week-scale or even seasonal or longer scales? For example here in Turkey the gas generation increases in dry years due to lack of hydropower. Unfortunately although we have a net zero target of 2053 unlike UK we don’t have a serious official plan for how to decarbonise electricity, although I might dig around the think tanks to see whether they suggest grid energy storage or something else. Chidgk1 (talk) 08:03, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

That's a good point. I was planning to add a paragraph about system value of storage duration. That is: say that there is a market now for <1 and 1-4h of storage, that with VRE + nuclear over 60%, there is a market for medium-duration storage, and only at nuclear+VRE > 90%, will there be money in long-duration storage (based on the Schmidt & Staffell book). I'll see if I can bring in peaker plants there too. I believe they do have a cost comparison I could add. There are a lot of academic sources & semi-governmental sources, so I don't think we have to rely on lower-quality think tank sources. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 12:11, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Grid energy storage/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Femke (talk · contribs) 15:55, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 09:48, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Comments

What a good and timely article. It's in the main very well-written and fully-cited, so my comments will mostly be few and minor. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:48, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

• The lead covers the engineering reasonably well, though it does not mention some of the 'Forms' at all (it ought to mention each of the 5 of them at least briefly). Economics is barely mentioned (indirectly in the first paragraph). The questions of cost and market and system value need to be mentioned in the lead.

• File:Grid service batteries (IEA 2024).png: "Figure 1.9 Battery storage in power systems" - the embedded caption should be cropped off (CropTool on the left-hand menu on Commons) as irrelevant and indeed wrong in this context.

• File:Grid service batteries (IEA 2024).png needs to have its source cited in the caption.

• File:Grid service batteries (IEA 2024).png contains many text labels which are not discussed in the text. For example "Variable charge reduction" is nothing to do with capacitance... and "Distribution upgrade deferral" is nothing to do with dividends... And I doubt most readers will have an earthly what a "Ramping reserve" is, or why "ancillary services" (sounds like minor extras, no?) is glossed as "essential grid services". Basically, if we're going to use somebody else's table, we ought to be explaining all of it in the text, or better, it should be so clear and explanatory that it illuminates the text. I think it's actually slightly too power-gen business technical for the article's purposes (a general introduction), which is why the terms are a bit difficult for the average reader. It might be best to replace the image with an actual table: the text will be bigger and the cells can be fewer and simpler.

• The fascinating 1917 image File:Light-plant-Fig1198-Page989-Ch45-Hawkins-Electrical-Guide.png and its ref make it clear that there is a century of history to this topic. This should be covered in a sentence or two, perhaps at the top of 'Forms' in a subsection 'History'.

• Mind you, Pumped-storage hydroelectricity#History goes back to 1907 as well, while Compressed-air energy storage#History goes back to 1870, so 'History' should perhaps be a short freestanding chapter before 'Forms', covering battery, hydro, and compressed air (at least). There's no shortage of refs in those articles.

• There are some infelicities in the text. For instance "Providing short-term flexibility is a key role for energy storage." could be rewritten as "Short-term flexibility is a key goal for energy storage." or "One of the key roles for energy storage is to provide short-term flexibility." To give just one more example at random, " For instance, consumers may have cheaper night tariffs to encourage them to use electricity at night. Industry and commercial consumers can also change their demand to meet supply." treats "consumers" firstly as domestic consumers and then as "all consumers including commercial", not ideal; this would be better as two sentences.

Images

• Not a GAN issue, but File:Grid energy storage.png needs to be redrawn as an SVG with larger text labels. It might help in the meantime to make it a bit bigger.

• File:Grid storage energy flow.png, a very helpful diagram, should really be an SVG as well. Again, it'd be more readable a bit bigger.

  I find it a difficult one to understand, to don't want to sink time in that diagram. Have decided to make a new one from scratch, loosely inspired by [1] and [2]. Will take a bit, as my Inkscape skills are rusty. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 15:02, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

  I find the easiest way is Powerpoint, export as SVG ... and the result is without the SVG errors that Inkscape creates ... Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:22, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

  Attempt 1:

  

  Example energy production showing periods of oversupply and battery charging and periods of battery discharging

  Not sure I understand that one. What's the solid line? If it's demand, why are there different coloured areas above it? I found the existing diagram easier...

• File:Grid service batteries (IEA 2024).png would be better as an SVG or actually as a table, the text is all a lot smaller than the article's normal text (the guideline is not to use anything where the text is less than 85% of normal). Again, a temporary kludge would be to make it larger, no reason why not.

• File:Battery-cost-learning-curve.png works pretty well as a PNG even though the text labels are minuscule, as the curve tells the story visually. Still it ought to be an SVG really, and the absurd amount of text, some of it so pale grey as to be practically invisible, should be reduced severely.

• All the images are on Commons and plausibly licensed.

• The NASA flywheel image should be |upright.

Sources

• All the academic paper refs I checked are fine and indeed well-chosen. I'll take the book refs AGF; they all appear to be highly suitable for the topic.

Summary

• This is an excellent article. The main issue is simply that the lead needs to cover the parts of the article a little more thoroughly, and a bit of history is needed. Then it'll be a worthy GA. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:20, 24 November 2024 (UTC)