Batteries would like a word. They’re already storing solar power, getting cheaper, and improving at a pace nuclear construction schedules can only dream of. For longer gaps, pumped hydro and thermal storage can pitch in. Turns out the answer isn’t one magical box, but a bunch of technologies that actually exist.
From what I know, for large scale solar farms, batteries arent there yet. The maintainance and replacement costs cut into the money saved by using solar by quite a lot.
Not enough to reduce the benefits to zero and that’s all we need. As improvements come in you can upgrade the batteries over time and get better and better margins. But the system is already good enough for deployment.
From what I know there are many many many such projects in the permit phase in Germany, all of them run on capitalist interest without state funding. The only thing between now and them getting build is our government which seems to prefer a 180° turn into the fossil age.
For long term storage most countries will need more than pumping hydro. But green hydrogen can be produced from wind and solar to use in times of need in claasic power plants adapted for hydrogen. This technology also exists. But it is very inefficient, so should and will he used only as a backup.
Batteries would like a word. They’re already storing solar power, getting cheaper, and improving at a pace nuclear construction schedules can only dream of. For longer gaps, pumped hydro and thermal storage can pitch in. Turns out the answer isn’t one magical box, but a bunch of technologies that actually exist.
From what I know, for large scale solar farms, batteries arent there yet. The maintainance and replacement costs cut into the money saved by using solar by quite a lot.
Not enough to reduce the benefits to zero and that’s all we need. As improvements come in you can upgrade the batteries over time and get better and better margins. But the system is already good enough for deployment.
From what I know there are many many many such projects in the permit phase in Germany, all of them run on capitalist interest without state funding. The only thing between now and them getting build is our government which seems to prefer a 180° turn into the fossil age.
For long term storage most countries will need more than pumping hydro. But green hydrogen can be produced from wind and solar to use in times of need in claasic power plants adapted for hydrogen. This technology also exists. But it is very inefficient, so should and will he used only as a backup.
Hydrogen is also a huge pain to store. It’s really hard to keep it from leaking.
But it can be stored as Methane in exactly those containers that many countries already have at a large scale for their winters.