I thought I should respond to the latest suggestions from Department of Industry and others that nuclear power is an option worth considering for Australia. While I’m at it, I’ll add some updates on global developments.
* The most striking feature of recent Australian discussion, beginning with the Australian Energy Technology Assessment from 2011 is the claim that “small modular reactors” represent an appealing option for Australia. AETA listed these as being one of the cheapest options for 2020. with an estimated levelised cost of between $75 and $125/MWh. That’s both ambitious and remarkably precise for a technology that does not yet exist, even in prototype form. Leaving aside niche technologies like the Russian proposal to adapt nuclear sub reactors as floating platforms, the only serious contender in this field is the US, where the Department of Energy has provided grants for the development of two pilot plants. The target date (almost certainly over-optimistic) for these to begin operation is 2022. To get any idea of economic feasibility, it would be necessary both to undertake commercial deployment (in the US, obviously) and to to accumulate some years of operating experience. To get this done by 2030, or even 2035 would be an ambitious goal, to put it mildly. Again assuming everything goes well, Australia might be in a position to undertake deployment of SMRs by, say, 2040. But obviously, if we are going to reduce emissions on anything like the scale we need (80 per cent by 2050), we need to phase out most fossil fuel electricity well before that. Obviously, all these points apply in spades to proposals that exist only as designs, with no active proposals even for prototype development, such as the Integral Fusion Reactor. As I’ve argued before, to the extent that nuclear power makes any contribution to reducing CO2 emissions on a relevant time scale, it will have to be with current technology, most likely the AP1000.
* Talking of the AP1000, the builders four plants under construction at two sites in the US have just announced another 6 months delay, pushing the operations date out to 2017 or 2018 (release from FoE, but links to originals)
* Most interesting of all are projections released by the International Atomic Energy Agency last year for the period to 2050. Currently nuclear power accounts for around 11 per cent of global electricity. The IAEA “low’ projection has that falling to 10 per cent by 2030 and 5 per cent by 2050. The “high” projection, which includes steady growth in both North America and Western Europe as well as spectacular growth in Asia, has the share remaining roughly stable. So, even on the most optimistic projections of the world’s leading nuclear agency, nuclear power won’t play any significant role in decarbonising the electricity sector, let alone the economy as a whole.
I’ve come to the conclusion that nuclear power advocates, like climate delusionists (virtually all climate delusionists are nuclear fans, though not vice versa) are essentially immune to empirical evidence. So, I’d prefer no comments from our usual advocates (hermit, Will B etc) unless they have something genuinely new to say.
John Quiggin 
@Fran Barlow
NP is a religious issue, not a technical one. There is little rational debate, and the misapprehensions regarding the effects of radiation, dose levels, etc. are astonishing.
Being off the grid sounds good. Generally speaking it is the most expensive way to provide power.
@Fran Barlow
Hi Fran probably you are right on this, but I wonder if you also remember a debate I had on LP with someone (‘Mark from Brisbane’ I think) whom I first took to be a ‘genuine’ nuclear advocate who was interested in low emissions solutions, but who eventually turned out to be a complete climate change denier who accused me and others of being motivated by a religious belief in climate change and similar nonsensical stuff!
So once bitten, twice shy in my case I think.
Brian, a run of the mill inverter for a rooftop solar system will run at about 93% efficiency. The peak efficiency of most inverters nowadays is around 95-96%. An easy way to check that this is correct is to go to a solar inverter on a sunny day and put your hand on it. If your flesh isn’t burned off by searing heat emanating from it you’ll know it’s not running at 50-80% efficency.
@Fran Barlow
IEA Monthly Electricity Statistics for the Period Jan-Oct 2013 change over the corresponding period in 2012:
Combustible Fuels -32,864 GWh
Wind/Solar/geo + 6,976 GWh
Hydro + 17,684 GWh
With the balance mostly made up of a reduction of 5% in total electricity production. There was a drop in exports and an increase in imports. The change in hydro is due to the weather.
But of course by now, the story of the Spanish solar and wind miracle has bounced around the internet echo chamber, and I expect some here (excluding yourself) to be not the slightest bit interested in the facts.
@BilB
$2000 per year of electricity sounds like it needs a little more than “not take very much storage at all”.
IEA World Energy Outlook 2013 “current policies” scenario:
2035 World Electricity Production
Wind: 2251 TWh
PV: 680 TWh
CSP: 122 TWh
As the nuclear stuff in the IEA World Energy outlook is paywalled I’ll take the BP Energy Outlook projection of nuclear production in 2035.
Nuclear 4,300 TWh
Despite policies that have enormously favoured renewables for more than a decade and continue to do so.
BP projects world energy consumption to rise 41% to 2035 and emissions by 30%. That is almost certainly game over for 2 degrees.
The notion of stomping out nuclear power to be replaced by a solar and wind powered nirvana AND simultaneously maintaining a safe climate is fantasy for the foreseeable future. The problem is bad enough as it is without those purportedly concerned for a safe climate deliberately making it worse.
@Ronald Brak
At US$1200 (expected in 2014) just for the 2 kWh Li-ion battery, I wouldn’t call it very quick.
Yes, if they don’t want their computers and lights to go off before bedtime. But at US$600 per kWh, maybe they’ll just stick with the grid.
@Ronald Brak
Neither of these claims are believable as a Google images search of lithium-ion battery cost will show.
@Ken Fabian
Yes the bottom line is no-one significant is interested in nuclear energy in Australia, political support for Carbon emission reductions is intermittent and won’t be substantial for a long, long time, and very few Australians will be interested in paying to reduce their Carbon emissions.
So it’s pretty much business as usual for the next ten years at the very least.
C’mon ChrisON, One does not need to go for the gold plated system first time up.
http://www.solar-electric.com/unba100amagm.html
$400 will give a nameplate 2.4 kwhr storage capacity assembly with a 600 watt safe draw rate. Properly managed these batteries will last up to 8 years. Your $1200 would have a 7kwhr assembly with a 2100 watt safe draw rate (plus charge manager of course). Where the system lasts for 8 years that is an annual cost of $150, way less than the line connection charge if that can be cast off.
In the future a group of perhaps 10 houses may pool to form a micro grid, and have one line connection for the set with the cost of that shared between all houses, and that line being primarily for backup charging.
Chris O’Neil, you said you don’t think that at $1,200 for battery storage you don’t think the payoff would be very quick. What process did you use to arrive at that conclusion? Let’s say the batteries deliver two kilowatt-hours of storage each day. Some during daylight hours and around 1.8 kilowatt-hours in the evening. An Australian with rootop solar might pay a marginal cost of 30 cents per kilowatt-hour for grid electricity and receive a feed in tariff of 8 cents a kilowatt-hour. This means the batteries will save 44 cents per day or $160 a year and pay for themselves in 7.5 years. While this isn’t a particularly good return, I expect the price of home lithium-ion battery storage to be under $600 a kilowatt-hour.
Also, you say that mention that people how people will need more than 2 kilowatt-hours of storage if they don’t want their computers and lights to go off before bedtime. Yes, it’s very unlikely that anyone would disconnect from the grid with only two kilowatt-hours storage unless their electricity needs were very modest. Of course we don’t want people to disconnect from the grid.
Chris, you mentioned that you had trouble finding cheap li-ion batteries online. Did you try looking up how much 18650 cells bought in bulk from China cost? They can be surprisingly cheap. Of course sometimes you get what you pay for. (By the way, there’s about 8.1 watt hours in an 18650. Or at least there should be.)
@quokka
You write: “Despite policies that have enormously favoured renewables for more than a decade and continue to do so.”
In point of fact, energy policies have favoured nuclear and fossil fuel power with enormous subsidies since the 1960s. All the significant R&D for nuclear was done in military budgets. Nuclear power was and is funded and indemnified by governments for the most part. Fossil fuels have been the beneficiaries of endless subsidies that put 10 years of recent modest subsidies to renewables in the shade.
Global fossil-fuel subsidies exceed those for renewables —$523 billion to $88 billion, according to the International Energy Agency.
“The latest estimate of global fossil fuel subsidies comes from the IMF. In a report earlier this year, the IMF valued global fossil fuel subsidies at a staggering $1.9 trillion, or 2.5% of global GDP. The IMF estimate is a lot higher than previous estimates from the Earth Policy Institute ($620 billion) and IEA ($512 billion). This is because the IMF includes lost revenue from failure to apply efficient taxes to fossil fuels.” – The Conversation.
Britain subsidises its coal, oil and gas industries by $4.2bn (£2.6bn) a year.
“In Australia, a comprehensive 2007 study identified fossil fuel subsidies of between nine and ten billion dollars. More recent work by the Australian Conservation Foundation estimated that fossil fuel incentives amounted to $11 billion in 2010-11.” – The Conversation.
So it is time to drop the oft-repeated lies about where the subsidies really go.
@Ronald Brak
I think you are forgetting life-cycle cost. Lithium batteries don’t last that long. Your laptop is generally a lithium battery, as is your cell phone. A coupled hundred charge-discharge cycles and their usefulness declines. I know my laptop is a couple years old now, and the battery that used to last 3 hours lasts about 30 minutes. And I deep cycle it about once a week. I doubt very much you could get 7.5 years of life out of Li-batteries. I would expect on the order of maybe two years of cycling – 3-4 years at the outside. (This is a major reason why it’s a far better deal to hook directly up to the grid and drive your meter backwards for part of the day. Battery banks cost a lot, they have to be replaced, and Li-batteries can catch fire.)
Tesla is going to be dealing with this soon. I wonder how well they are going to weather it? I wonder if replacement battery packs are part of the purchase deal?
@Ronald Brak
The idea that an inverter will average to 93% efficiency would need serious proof before I would believe it.
To start with – the inverter draws power whenever it’s running. So, let’s say your inverter draws 20 watts (pretty normal). If you use 20 watts of power for some period, then at best you will operate at 50% efficiency or that period. If you use nothing, and the inverter is on, then you have -100% efficiency for that period. You can turn the inverter off, but then it won’t come right on when you flip a switch, so there will be periods when the inverter is running with no load. But usually, in a house, there is always some level of low-load. For instance, during the night when only clocks and the refrigerator are running, and things like computers and cell phones are charging. So a large part of the 24 hour period, the total load might be 10-30 watts, thus delivering an efficiency during that period of 33%-60%.
That ignores things like whether the inverter has a clean sine wave. Appliances that depend on AC power sine wave may consume 20% more power to operate.
Inverters only operate at peak efficiency when they are under their peak design load. If your inverter draws 20 watts, and has a peak load of 200 watts, then it is running at 90% at peak load.
Home batteries would need to be quite large to power air conditioning at night or resistance heating in winter. There was talk of using refurbished 13 kwh lithium batteries from the Chevrolet Volt for this task. Google it. At 180 kg the battery may be too heavy for wall mounting. To get the daily 22 kwh used by the average Australian home the panel array might need to be 10 kw to cover winter needs (varying by State) with most output curtailed in summer. It would be prudent to keep paying $1 a day or whatever for grid connection in case of an extended overcast period.
That gets us back to realtime generation and the needs of pensioners in heatwaves. I had an email just this morning about a distant relative who refused to use air conditioning in 45C heat last week for fear of cost. Their Federation style home may have saved them. I suggest you still need a non-coal based way of supplying at least 20 GW of centralised power-on-demand to the eastern grid. Home batteries are not for everyone even if they become cheaper.
At #8
“In the future a group of perhaps 10 houses may pool to form a micro grid, and have one line connection for the set with the cost of that shared between all houses, and that line being primarily for backup charging.”
To elaborate on t hat a little, the “line connection” is a line to the street grid. The set of houses are otherwise of grid and share power from their Rooftop solar amoungst themselves with shared energy being monitored by micro meters for inter property billing.
Brian, according to you solar inverters run at 50-80%. Let’s use the midpoint of that range which is 65%. Apart from a satisfied humming sound that inefficiency is going to end up as heat. Three kilowatt solar systems are pretty common here in Australia. Go put your hand on a 3 kilowatt solar inverter at around noon and discover if it is putting out 1,000+ watts worth of heat, which is more than a small bar heater and what it would be doing if it was running at 65% efficiency.
People dropping off the grid is a threat that Australia needs to avoid. It is not a good thing and action needs to be taken to prevent it. It is not a good thing because we want people to stay on the grid an supply their excess solar energy to others. Unfortunately with the way things are done now once home and business energy storage becomes cheap enough people will have a financial incentive to drop off the grid or never get connected in the first place. The simplest way to prevent this is probably to remove the supply charge component of the electricity bill. This will increase the cost of electricity per kilowatt-hour but will prevent people from saving money by going off grid. It will have the disadvantage of removing the subsidy the poor, who use little electricity, pay to the rich, who tend to use considerably more. However, I am sure some way can be found to compensate the rich for this heinous insult.
@Ronald Brak
With waste heat like that it might be worth attaching some sort of Stirling Engine type device to drive a magnet and generate power. Yes you’ll lose some of it but 80% of something is better than 100% of nothing.
Interpolating from an ABS graph it seems Australia must now have something like 10m households. Many will be in multistorey and rented dwellings. For each household to have adequate winter PV and a large battery it’s hard to see the cost going below $30k per household. I’ve mentioned the house nearby that ran out of roof space for a large 40 panel system. I suggest most people can’t afford $30k without some special financing deal. 10m X $30k = $300 bn a massive private cost but we would still need backup centralised power plant to cover rainy weeks. In the US utility companies are doing PV deals with households but I haven’t heard of it here, not in TV ads at least.
Let’s not forget that crude oil has peaked so we will need to electrify transport which takes 43% of Australia’s primary energy demand according to BREE. Then there’s industry demand as well as household. That’s why the large coal stations aren’t going anywhere and why we are not making anywhere near adequate emissions cuts.
@Ikonoclast
Just wrong. In 1947 in the US, the control of peace time development of atomic science and technology was transferred from the military to the Atomic Energy Agency setting in course the separation of the military and peaceful use of nuclear power. With the outcome that for a long time there has been little connection. In 1974 the Atomic Energy Agency was split into the Energy Research and Development Administration and the Nuclear regulatory Commission and in 1977 the Energy Research and Development Administration became the Department of Energy. Government funded nuclear R&D spending in the US has been through the system of National Laboratories funded by the DOE and it’s predecessors and not via military budgets. Government R&D spend on renewables has also been via DOE.
The proliferation of false claims has been a defining feature of the anti-nuclear movement.
@Hermit
A more viable model might involve leasing space on the rooves of suitable shopping centres and warehouses. The net extra land would be zero, and especially on the higher structures, even the visual clutter would be low. You could probably even justify having a mechanism to orient each of them optimally for the sun as it passed overhead. People could buy bonds in it, or buy equity, or the state could hold some and market the output. On that scale, one could have batteries or output the power to pumped storage or even have a deal with the local retailer to onsell the output for a modest commission.
Fran, the waste heat from a 65% efficient inverter could be used to run a hot water system. But I think the most important thing to do first would be to remove it from the wall so it doesn’t burn the house down.
@Ronald Brak
Yes, that would be the most efficient use assuming one didn’t have solar hot water or those shower rosettes that heat water as it emerges from the faucet.
Indeed.
More on wild claims about the massive historical injustices done to renewables in R&D and direct subsidies in comparison to nuclear. In the US in the period 1978 to 2012 US DOE R&D spend:
Nuclear: 36.9%
Renewables: 16.5%
Energy Efficiency: 14.7%
Over that period, nuclear power produced massively more power than non-hydro renewables and the allocation is not at all unreasonable. Nuclear was already proven to be viable and for most of the period wind and solar were in the “maybe” category.
Source: US Congressional Budget Office – Renewable Energy R&D Funding History: A Comparison with Funding for Nuclear Energy, Fossil Energy, and Energy Efficiency R&D
In terms of direct subsidy, mainly by tax preferences, fossil fuels and renewables received nearly all and nuclear power received very little. See Figure 1 in
US Congressional Budget Office: Federal Financial Support for the Development and
Production of Fuels and Energy Technologies
@Ron Brak – No, you didn’t follow. What I said is that the efficiency depends on the load, versus the energy consumption of the inverter.
Go look up how many watts an inverter consumes.
Then, look at a readout of the energy consumption of the home (the load) over the course of a day. Most of the time it will be pretty low – for instance – when nobody is home.
To figure out the actual efficiency of an inverter, use this formula.
E = efficiency; iW = inverter Wattage; L = load
E = L / ( iW + L )
Work it out. Do the math for a few problems and see what numbers you get for E.
@quokka
I’m going to dispute the reasoning here. If wind and solar were in the maybe category they almost certainly did need more R&D support Ceteris Paribus than an established and viable technology such as nuclear. Once TMI and Chernobyl happened of course and enthusiasm for the technology waned, and the problem of how to manage the hazmat in a way that was politically acceptable persisted, the arguments for R&D for nuclear, apart perhaps than for 3rd or even 4th Gen or fusion reactors weaken. Of course such R&D would by definition have nothing to do with existing Gen 2 output, save as it related to hazmat sequestration or plant operation. In short, it would have been because these technologies were also in the maybe category.
One can see early on why FHC got such support — the focus was on energy independence and to some extent the mandates of the Clean Air Act and the more general desire to burn less fuel. Once GHG abatement became an issue, the rationale for such subsidies ought to have declined.
@Brian
I have an Aurora inverter on my domestic 5kW system. The display indicates “power in” and “power out”. I’ll assume that power out is the same as “load” in your maths above. Typically, when the system is going flat out, the difference is about 150-200W out of 5kW. So, E = ~96%.
This matches the efficiency stated on the data sheet. So it would seem your equation is in the same ballpark as theirs.
Secondly, the load is always at max. Whatever is not being used at home (regardless of how many of us are at home) is being exported.
Finally, I’ve done Ronald Brak’s test and put my hand on the inverter. It turns out the device has a heat sink to help disperse the ‘lost’ power. No burns for me. 🙂
@quokka
Military R&D kicked off practical nuclear development. Government R&D progressed it. The point is massive government subsidies established nuclear power and underwrote it. That’s the fact you try to avoid.
You completely miss my points about subsidies for nuclear and fossil fuels being orders of magnitude higher than subsidies for renewables both currently and historically.
In another post, you want to remove hydro from the mix before talking about renewables. Talk about stacking the deck to suit your argument.
But why do I bother? Nuclear proponents are impervious to evidence.
Brian, if 3 kilowatts of electricity are going into an inverter and 2 kilowatts are coming out then where is that extra kilowatt going? Fairyland? Today in Adelaide a 3 kilowatt solar system could easily produce over 20 kilowatt-hours. You say that solar inverters can be as little as 50% efficient which mean over the course of the day such an inverter would give off more heat than a small bar heater run for ten hours. So are you saying that there is magic involved and the law of conservation of energy has somehow been broken, or are you saying that our solar inverters actually do give off this much heat and we just haven’t noticed because we’re tough or something?
@Fran Barlow
Why?
Historical choice is between options X and Y. Option X has proved to be viable at large scale with much potential for further improvement for the foreseeable future. Option Y has never been shown to be viable at large scale or cost effective. Where’s the money going to go to? There’s no point in trying to inject any claims derived from hindsight into it.
The largest nuclear R&D spend of that era was the Integral Fast Reactor and the work preceding it. It’s doubtful than any commercial nuclear industry entity ever derived any financial benefit from that. Some DOE funds went to GE and they also put their own money in, but certainly haven’t made any money out of it.
You also need to sort the nature of the “maybes”. They mainly lie in the areas of engineering feasibility and economics. Only rarely are they decisively “overdetermined” by politics.
Even now there’s scope for funding useful R&D to maximise benefits from LWR technology and it goes on. For example in development of new fuel technology that should be able to provide power uprates of 20% or more on existing plant. This is non-trivial benefit. Another area is in life extension of existing plant.
@BilB
I’m glad you agree that Ronald Brak’s suggestion is a gold plated system.
@quokka
“In the US in the period 1978 to 2012 US DOE R&D spend:”
IIRC, no US nuclear plant commissioned in the period since 1978 has yet been completed. So, R&D money spent since 1978 has resulted in zero additional production (except maybe for some tweaks to older plants, which benefitted from R&D spending between 1945 and 1978).
On the subject of throwing good money after bad I see the Clean Energy Finance Corporation is dispensing easy finance despite the PM’s request to desist. Some projects seem like a long shot, for example wave power and seawater greenhouses. Perhaps straight grants for proof of concept would be more appropriate. The problem is if a commercially unviable idea keeps asking for soft loans the day must come when some money has to be repaid. When Ferguson was energy minister he threw at lot of money at clean coal and dry rock geothermal. The latter have a small pilot plant in the middle of the outback with no customers for the electricity. All good I suppose if people notice what works and what doesn’t.
Chris O’Neill, BilB was actually referring to your suggestion that home energy storage would cost $600 a kilowatt-hour as being a gold plated system. But even at $600 a kilowatt-hour with a ten year lifespan, a 5% discount rate, a kilowatt-hour of grid consumption displaced per kilowatt-hour of storage per day, the forgone opportunity cost of an eight cent a kilowatt-hour feed in tariff and system loses it will still provide storage at about 27 cents a kilowatt-hour which is less than the marginal cost most Australians pay for grid electicity. But I do think that the Sunnyboy SMA and similar systems will be sold at less than $600 per kilowatt-hour of storage.
WWII military research fired off a whole bunch of new technologies. “For a radar free Australia!”
So how massive then? Well from 1948 to 2012 the US government spent $95.69 billion US 2011 dollars on nuclear R&D. That comes to an average of $1.47 billion per year or to really put it into perspective, we’ll assume an average US population of 250 million over than period and calculate a per capita spend of 5.88 cents per person per year. That’s in 2011 dollars. Not very “massive” then. Reference already provided.
In contrast in Germany now, domestic electricity consumers pay a renewables levy of more than 5 euro cents per kWh on every kWh of electricity they consume regardless of whether it came from lignite or wind.
Cognitive dissonance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel%E2%80%93iron_battery
“Nickel-iron batteries have long been used in European mining operations because of their ability to withstand vibration, high temperatures and other physical stress. They are being examined again for use in wind and solar power systems where battery weight is not important.
Many railway vehicles use Ni-Fe batteries.[8][9] Some examples are London underground electric locomotives and New York City Subway car – R62A.
The technology has regained popularity for off-the-grid applications where daily charging makes it an appropriate technology.[10][11][12]” etc.
There are also other batteries using Iron which may be useful, particularly for those wishing to use them for home storage.
As far as I am aware money spent on research in the past can’t be unspent. So I guess the question really is should money be spent on nuclear power research now? Well, a nuclear plant and a coal plant share similarities. They both make steam to turn turbines. But the need to safely contain radioactive material in practice makes a nuclear plant much more expensive than a coal plant. Currently there is no realistic way to make a nuclear plant cost less to construct than a coal plant. And since new coal plants, even ones that paying only a few dollars per tonne of coal, cannot compete with new wind and solar it seems completely pointless for Australia to invest money in nuclear power research. And any developments in construction or materials technology that makes it possible to lower the cost of coal and nuclear plants should also be able to be applied to wind turbines and solar panels and other low emission generating capacity. And since wind and solar have much smaller unit sizes than coal or nuclear it should be much easier to apply improvements in construction and materials to them.
@Ronald Brak
That’s pretty expensive. Mine this year will cost 22 cents per kWh.
Or in my case, 28 cents per day or $102 a year and pay for themselves in 11.74 years, i.e. long after the lithium-ion batteries have failed.
That may happen some time but even then it will be a waste of money.
LOL!
Chris, the Sunnyboy SMA has a design life of 10 years. This means that it is likely to continue working beyond 12 years time although with reduced performance. Unlike an electric car home energy storage does not need to drive anywhere and so can still be used even when the batteries have suffered a lot of degragation. It just won’t save as much money as when it was young and fresh. (And just to save on confusion I’ll point out that I’m not saying it can be relied on to continue functioning beyond its design life, but I do expect it to on average work for at least several years beyond a decade, but I could be WRONG!)
At $600 per kilowatt-hour home energy storage is around the break-even point for many Australians. But for some reason you say that energy storage cheaper than this would be a waste of money. Could you explain your reasons for thinking this, or did this thought just spring into your mind fully formed as Athena from the head of Zeus and you decided to share it with us without first checking if it had any bearing on reality?
@Hermit
The Clean Energy Finance Corporation has certain duties in terms of the Act of Parliament that created it. Neither that act nor any other act authorise the prime minister to direct the corporation not to perform its legal duties. Are you seriously proposing the constitution be amended to empower the prime minister to command that an organ of state not carry out its statutory duties? Or perhaps you would prefer to empower the prime minister to repeal Acts of Parliament at his own pleasure?
@Ronald Brak
How long they last might be a surprise too.
@Ronald Brak
With a cost commensurate with its lifetime no doubt.
@Ronald Brak
OK, so it would only save me $102 maybe in the first year and continue declining thereafter. Thus the payback period would extend beyond the 11.74 years assuming zero degradation. This does not help your case.
@Ronald Brak
It’s easily a waste of money at $600 per kWh. This means it’s a waste of money at $599 per kWh. $599 per kWh is less than $600 per kWh.
Maybe you should ask yourself the same question sometimes, especially if you’re going to ask someone else.
@Hermit
Oh lord I am sorry to be rude but you are talking so much cr-p and it’s so painful to listen to you. I am a one person household ( the most energy intensive kind) with a 1.5kw solar array. At present it’s producing about 6x as much as I’m using, and will produce more than I use most of the year (apart from the winter months June till August). The embedded energy in my flat and possessions will be paid off over time, especially as I’m a great recycler.
The only problem is storage, as has been discussed extensively, and I’m sure that can be solved. So why do you go on with your arguments? What is in it for you?
Seriously, for us in the lucky country of Australia, the future is right here, and it’s solar. The only people who will lose are profiteers. It’s amazing how much influence they wield.
@BilB
Lead-acid is still far more economic than Lithium-ion. I think the Sunnyboy Lithium-ion based systems are for people who don’t care about the cost and want something that’s small and light and will fit into their small apartment (such as is common in Germany).
So when I think about a battery storage system, I definitely think about the type of battery that you cite.
I’d like to set up a battery storage system, and it wouldn’t be any technical problem for me (seeing as how I’m an electrical engineer and all 🙂 but lead-acid batteries don’t last a real long time and the depreciation cost is substantial. Also, the two possible sources of cheaper energy, solar cells and off-peak grid, still have issues and there is also the issue of getting approval for connecting the storage system to the grid.
In the case of using off-peak grid power as an energy source, the main issue would be getting approval to allow you to do this, because I believe this method is rarely used, even though it’s probably cheaper and would make better use of your battery storage than solar cells.
In the case of using solar cells as an energy source, the cost of electricity they produce is still not really cheap so the total cost of solar cells+storage is not particularly competitive with the grid. Ideally, solar cells will get cheap enough that their electricity cost is relatively small in which case I hope the storage cost will be competitive with the grid.
However, as someone above mentioned, people get tired of looking after their battery systems after a while.