Comment by sandworm101
7 hours ago
I am still a fan of centrifugal systems. The lifecycle costs of a spinning mass seem more manageable than the complexities of chemical batteries. The mass of a block of concrete and steal isn't going to degrade over time. And bearings/motors are such mature tech that they can last decades, even a century without replacement.
If you're going mechanical, why not pumped water storage instead? Nothing has to spin super fast and hydro has a lot of maturity.
(From a guy who got burned buying stock in a centrifugal system as my first "wicked smaht" investment as a 22yo).
there are areas where almost all options for pumped hydro are already developed and there's little room for expansion. additionally, the heat waves from the climate catastrophe affects pumped hydro negatively (evaporation and higher water temperature).
Evaporation can be solved by covering the reservoirs, so the water can't evaporate. Geography is the real issue. Costs to build possibly too.
Mostly because we already used all suitable places. It also has a huge environmental impact, large upfront costs that you can only spend in bulk, permissions, lawsuits, protests from the local population and so forth.
Hydro is limited by geography. It cannot scale in the same way. Rather than giant spinning masses at central locations, current thinking is more about smaller masses scattered throughout a grid. There are even a few studies on whether existing air conditioner/heat pump compressors could contribute.
I think geographic dispersion of batteries is going to be a big plus. If the "battery" is a giant lake or a big plant with a spinning mass, the power has to be transmitted from that facility to the end user over the grid
Putting a ton of smaller chemical batteries at distribution substations means when the grid is at the peak, you can cover that peak without transmitting that power over the transmission system. Putting the battery near the consumer will take a big load off of the transmission system which as much of a bottleneck as the lack of generating facilities
> And bearings/motors are such mature tech that they can last decades, even a century without replacement.
This is not true at all for bearings in large industrial systems under constant load. As the mass scales up, the systems become exponentially more sensitive to vibrations from wear of the mechanical parts. Even magnetic bearings max out at about 20 years.
Flywheel systems are more complicated and expensive than simple chemical batteries. Cost also scales much more than batteries as you increase the energy storage. They are also less efficient over time due to friction even with magnetic bearings.
Maintenance on high energy movement hasn't exactly had a great track record either.
There was a giant flywheel company near me about 20 years ago. Maybe it's still there. They had one incident where a flywheel broke.
https://beaconpower.com/stephentown-new-york/
There's a very long waiting list for new synchronous condensers, almost 5 years from order to delivery.
Batteries can serve the same function, while also providing energy arb and additional grid services, so I'm somewhat curious how log the market for syncons continues to exist.
Batteries (and their associated HV switching gear) are slow to react and have very limited lifespans, on the order of a few years. That's why your washing machine uses a capacitor to start its motor rather than a battery. Even capacitors are not as reactive as an already spinning mass.
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Yup. Esp. when space is available. But thet benefit heavily from low pressure environments though so it's not just an arm and a mass in a fence.