Building ultra cheap energy storage for solar PV(austinvernon.substack.com)
austinvernon.substack.com
Building ultra cheap energy storage for solar PV
https://austinvernon.substack.com/p/building-ultra-cheap-energy-storage
97 comments
They skipped a few real competitors that'll shrink their market:
1. In places with underground water reservoirs, these can be used for heat storage very similar to this. It's location dependant but I think there's European district heating networks doing this already.
2. Heat pumps for process steam are gaining ground. The temperature at which heat pumps lose competitivness is slowly rising over time. They mention storage at 600C. Heat pumps win under 80C and are up to 160C and aiming for 200C though at those temps cheap gas will probably win for now. Heat pumps can also recycle process heat and cool and heat at the same time.
3. Wind doesn't get mentioned. Wind doesn't pair as neatly with batteries as solar does but in places with seasonal storage issues the batteries can be used for solar and wind during summer and wind plus whatever (biogas/nuclear/hydro) in winter. They need to worry about both centralised big batteries and customer sited ones.
In general I'm supportive of the idea, but similar to the Nordic sand battery, when they start talking about generating electricity from the stored heat I take that as a signal that they've realised the alternatives above combine to really squeeze the market they have left and undermines my faith in the rest of the product.
1. In places with underground water reservoirs, these can be used for heat storage very similar to this. It's location dependant but I think there's European district heating networks doing this already.
2. Heat pumps for process steam are gaining ground. The temperature at which heat pumps lose competitivness is slowly rising over time. They mention storage at 600C. Heat pumps win under 80C and are up to 160C and aiming for 200C though at those temps cheap gas will probably win for now. Heat pumps can also recycle process heat and cool and heat at the same time.
3. Wind doesn't get mentioned. Wind doesn't pair as neatly with batteries as solar does but in places with seasonal storage issues the batteries can be used for solar and wind during summer and wind plus whatever (biogas/nuclear/hydro) in winter. They need to worry about both centralised big batteries and customer sited ones.
In general I'm supportive of the idea, but similar to the Nordic sand battery, when they start talking about generating electricity from the stored heat I take that as a signal that they've realised the alternatives above combine to really squeeze the market they have left and undermines my faith in the rest of the product.
Yeah, Form Energy exists to basically disprove this:
Batteries will still be too expensive to arbitrage these seasonal differences effectively. Thermal electricity storage is orders of magnitude cheaper for storage, but worse at daily cycling
Form's basic idea is that low round trip efficiency can work as long as it's cheaper enough.
They've always had $20/KWh as a notional price but there's already talk of Sodium batteries in China getting near that price point, while having nearly double the round trip efficiency.
They've always had $20/KWh as a notional price but there's already talk of Sodium batteries in China getting near that price point, while having nearly double the round trip efficiency.
I have a home in the southwest that is off grid and runs on solar plus lifepo3 batteries. It has been 5+ years now. My cost per kwh is below $0.008 as of today including all capital and maintenance. These numbers get a bit complicated, for example I run the AC much colder than I would if I was paying more for it. I have extra fridges and freezers I probably wouldn't if I had to pay higher per kwh. I "throw away" a lot of power too that I am not counting when the batteries fill up.
I have about 40kwh of storage. The batteries are in steel boxes and there are some basic precautions to take with them but lifepo3 has a very manageable risk profile quite different from lipo. Batteries and solar equipment continue to get cheaper, the same system I have is now 50% cheaper today then when I bought it, including tariffs.
The link really discusses more of a single neighborhood or medium industrial site possible type of technology. Really just a huge very hot pile of sand and steam turbine or propane cell generation. On a kwh basis it is probably not competitive with solar+battery unless your use case involved a lot of direct use of hot water or heating something.
I have about 40kwh of storage. The batteries are in steel boxes and there are some basic precautions to take with them but lifepo3 has a very manageable risk profile quite different from lipo. Batteries and solar equipment continue to get cheaper, the same system I have is now 50% cheaper today then when I bought it, including tariffs.
The link really discusses more of a single neighborhood or medium industrial site possible type of technology. Really just a huge very hot pile of sand and steam turbine or propane cell generation. On a kwh basis it is probably not competitive with solar+battery unless your use case involved a lot of direct use of hot water or heating something.
> I have a home in the southwest
> I have about 40kwh of storage
You're pretty close to the ideal location for solar + batteries. For much of Europe or the Eastern US, this amount of storage would be nowhere close to enough, by orders of magnitude - they need to make it through the winter, and generate heat from it, after all.
For each location, there's an ideal amount of storage and an ideal amount of overbuilt capacity, both depending on hardware costs (and contributions of wind to the energy mix).
In your case, both numbers are relatively small. With lower incident sun, persistent cloud cover, and the possibility of becalmed wind turbines, storage requirements can start to make thermal batteries or hydrogen storage economical.
> I have about 40kwh of storage
You're pretty close to the ideal location for solar + batteries. For much of Europe or the Eastern US, this amount of storage would be nowhere close to enough, by orders of magnitude - they need to make it through the winter, and generate heat from it, after all.
For each location, there's an ideal amount of storage and an ideal amount of overbuilt capacity, both depending on hardware costs (and contributions of wind to the energy mix).
In your case, both numbers are relatively small. With lower incident sun, persistent cloud cover, and the possibility of becalmed wind turbines, storage requirements can start to make thermal batteries or hydrogen storage economical.
How many hours of maintenance do spend on it on average per week? Or perhaps more appropriate if it’s rarely, per year?
Not the person you are asking, but our system is 5 years old and has required two hours of intervention work (zero scheduled maintenance).
A USB extension cable died, and it took an hour for the manufacturer to diagnose it over the phone, for me to find the right tamper bit to access it, then remove the cable.
Another time, PG&E was feeding the wrong voltage and frequency into our house. The power stayed on (our transfer switch knife cut off PG&E) but the solar array shut down because this is a weird fault. Again, it took about an hour to diagnose over the phone and fix (in this case, I temporarily turned off the PG&E service breaker. It ran diagnostics for about 30 minutes and turned the array back on).
Installation (included in purchase) was probably about 100 man hours though.
A USB extension cable died, and it took an hour for the manufacturer to diagnose it over the phone, for me to find the right tamper bit to access it, then remove the cable.
Another time, PG&E was feeding the wrong voltage and frequency into our house. The power stayed on (our transfer switch knife cut off PG&E) but the solar array shut down because this is a weird fault. Again, it took about an hour to diagnose over the phone and fix (in this case, I temporarily turned off the PG&E service breaker. It ran diagnostics for about 30 minutes and turned the array back on).
Installation (included in purchase) was probably about 100 man hours though.
Probably a few hours per year. I occasionally vacuum the dust filters and check to make sure everything seems in order.
Batteries are getting crazy inexpensive. You can get 16kwh for $1850 now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bShGUPU3TQ
I'm not knowledgeable enough to know whether or not this will cause a perma-fire in my home. I wouldn't even know where to begin to determine whether this is a death trap or a great deal. I'm leaning towards the former
Lithium-ion: fire hazard, capable of thermal runaway and pack both fuel and oxidizer, napalm-style.
LiFePO4: safe, unless you crack them and ignite the liquid with a blowtorch, or something.
LiFePO4: safe, unless you crack them and ignite the liquid with a blowtorch, or something.
Lithium-ion: produces its own oxygen, the reason why you get thermal runaways.
LiFePO4: Does not produce its own oxygen, any fire (can happen) is limited to the surrounding air.
A trend in home batteries, that we see now (because of killer competition on the Chinese Market / export), is LiFePO4 batteries that have a included fire extinguisher module.
This adds another layer of security beyond:
* LiFePO4 (not oxygen producing)
* Most batteries are encased in a iron protective layer, this reduces the risk of punctures. And also act as a fire suppressor as any fire has a hard time escaping / limited amount of oxygen access.
* Depending on the batteries, they can be installed in a enclosed rack.
* The now often fire extinguisher module in a lot of pre-made batteries.
The chance of a fire from a LiFePO4 install is so small, that your more likely to get a fire from any other part of your house (probably your laptop or smartphone lol ).
A trend in home batteries, that we see now (because of killer competition on the Chinese Market / export), is LiFePO4 batteries that have a included fire extinguisher module.
This adds another layer of security beyond:
* LiFePO4 (not oxygen producing)
* Most batteries are encased in a iron protective layer, this reduces the risk of punctures. And also act as a fire suppressor as any fire has a hard time escaping / limited amount of oxygen access.
* Depending on the batteries, they can be installed in a enclosed rack.
* The now often fire extinguisher module in a lot of pre-made batteries.
The chance of a fire from a LiFePO4 install is so small, that your more likely to get a fire from any other part of your house (probably your laptop or smartphone lol ).
Thank you so much for the in-depth answer. Super helpful
Thank you for the info!
...if you want to take your chances with cheap junk in a safety-critical application. I watched about 3 minutes of that video and the number of issues that guy ran into was disturbing. You'd have to be nuts to put that thing in your house.
I am in no position to install a battery system, but if I were, I would definitely build a little cinder-block shed to hold the array. Offset that a good distance from standing structures and instant piece of mind.
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Please do not give that guy more exposure than he already has, his advice is going to get someone killed one of these days. He knows just enough to be dangerous.
I would strongly disagree. Inexpensive batteries are everywhere now - this is the work of market forces, not some guy on Youtube - and he's one of a handful of people who you can trust to do an honest dissection of a battery. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to check for a handful of basic safety features and characteristics, which is more or less what he does.
Will Prowse has been around a while now and this is the first time I'm seeing a critique of his safety habits. Please elaborate as he's widely respected in the solar/storage community.
Given how many years of experience we have with Will Prowse, it would be helpful if you could elaborate a little on why we should trust your opinion more.
As my grandma used to say, regarding speaking a foreign language: "enough to get you beat up, not enough to get them to stop"
Why the downvotes?
Conversation instead of anonymous bashing would be appreciated.
Unless you have no good arguments, so I dare you, random aggressive strangers, I triple dare you!
Conversation instead of anonymous bashing would be appreciated.
Unless you have no good arguments, so I dare you, random aggressive strangers, I triple dare you!
I've done a lot of spreadsheets on this kind of solution, but on a slightly smaller scale: a single family home. While it will work for a while it is not enough to meaningfully offset the seasonal cycle which is the thing that needs solving. Storing energy for a few days up to two weeks is (relatively) easy, storing it cheaply for up to 6 months is very hard unless you are willing to invest massively offsetting much of your savings. The pile of rock required to heat an average home for a couple of weeks handily outweighs the house itself. And that's without a double conversion, it is used and stays as heat, the idea was to moderate the leakage upwards as a source of heat by blowing air in a controlled manner rather than to convert it again.
So I really hope these guys will succeed where I can't even get it to work on paper, sometimes scale really is a requirement to make something work and this could very well be one of those.
So I really hope these guys will succeed where I can't even get it to work on paper, sometimes scale really is a requirement to make something work and this could very well be one of those.
Isn't it cheaper to just buy more panels, enough to meet your winter needs? Then who cares if they sit mostly idle for most of summer; energy not used is harmless.
Then your storage model becomes "a cloudy week" rather than "a whole season", and the storage scale changes significantly.
Then your storage model becomes "a cloudy week" rather than "a whole season", and the storage scale changes significantly.
This is certainly the solution in somewhere like Australia where the winter production is about half of the summer production. It gets more problematic in places further north/south where its 5x or worse and then you need quite a bit of land to produce enough power and battery storage than can go multiple days at least.
The difference between net zero across the year and 95% unlikely to need the grid on solar and batteries is a staggering difference, about 10x the panels and battery storage. But the equation changes drastically depending on local weather patterns and the solar irradiance difference from summer to winter.
The difference between net zero across the year and 95% unlikely to need the grid on solar and batteries is a staggering difference, about 10x the panels and battery storage. But the equation changes drastically depending on local weather patterns and the solar irradiance difference from summer to winter.
How about keeping an ICE-powered generator for those several days in a year when the sky is stubbornly cloudy and dark? Could make sense for remote houses.
BTW keeping your house connected to the mains costs $10-20 / mo, even if you consume nothing. Connection cost is one-time, but likely several thousand.
BTW keeping your house connected to the mains costs $10-20 / mo, even if you consume nothing. Connection cost is one-time, but likely several thousand.
> How about keeping an ICE-powered generator
Or an EV. I only need enough instant battery capacity to last a couple hours. That would handle the vast majority of outages I ever experience, all by itself. If it looks like it is going to be longer, I grab the cable from the transfer switch and plug it into my Lightning. That would get me through a hypothetical week long outage.
Or an EV. I only need enough instant battery capacity to last a couple hours. That would handle the vast majority of outages I ever experience, all by itself. If it looks like it is going to be longer, I grab the cable from the transfer switch and plug it into my Lightning. That would get me through a hypothetical week long outage.
No, (1) you need too much space and I'm pretty much maxed out already (50 panels), during the wintermonths (2) the angle is really bad, (3) the days are shorter and (4) you're overcast a lot of the time. So that simply will not work. But in the summer I have so much excess I get penalized for it, which is ridiculous.
Once homeowners have done everything they can (as you have, in your example), the remaining optimization is to drive down storage costs (LFP is ~$52/kWh in China at utility scale) until seasonal storage is solved for (which is likely a combination of electrical transmission [to be able to shift low carbon energy from areas that are constantly plentiful] and longer term storage like ammonia or similar fuels created and transported [pumped around] with low carbon energy). Of course, if you have the space, keep putting solar PV up until it's no longer an issue when paired with heat pumps.
> electrical transmission
I think the current consensus is that transmission to solve for regional solar differences is not cost effective. At least in the US, most places have plentiful land available nearby and it costs way less to overbuild the solar for winter than it does to try and bring it from some place with more plentiful sunlight.
I think the current consensus is that transmission to solve for regional solar differences is not cost effective. At least in the US, most places have plentiful land available nearby and it costs way less to overbuild the solar for winter than it does to try and bring it from some place with more plentiful sunlight.
HVDC is definitely a game changer but requires international cooperation. North-South for seasonal and East-West for daily.
> the angle is really bad
Optimize the angle for the Winter. The Summer will do well enough anyways.
Optimize the angle for the Winter. The Summer will do well enough anyways.
Assuming rooftop, there are too many cons with angled installations so it may not be realistic to change the angle. Flat mounted is the way to go (IMO).
Indeed, at this point I'd plan on going for maximum coverage, the efficiency loss from a non-optimal alignment is completely overwhelmed by being able to put half again or twice as many panels in the same area.
Flat mounted has some issues with drainage though leading to a messy surface on the low edge of the panel. You can clean that but it doesn't take much before it is really dirty again.
The panels themselves are cheap and getting cheaper.
However the mounting systems, solar charger controllers, and inverters are mostly not.
The bulk of the cost of panels now isn't the panels themselves, but all the supporting infrastructure.
The seasonal variation can be as high as seven to one, so the total install has to be very very cheap to support a 700-1000% over build.
However the mounting systems, solar charger controllers, and inverters are mostly not.
The bulk of the cost of panels now isn't the panels themselves, but all the supporting infrastructure.
The seasonal variation can be as high as seven to one, so the total install has to be very very cheap to support a 700-1000% over build.
The last time this was discussed, someone mentioned you only needed as much inverter capacity that you wanted to process. So in winter all panels were hooked up but in summer some were disconnected or bypassed somehow?
Though if you are on a grid that allows it, you might want to send summer power back into the grid for credits
Though if you are on a grid that allows it, you might want to send summer power back into the grid for credits
There's basically two kinds of systems.
Micro inverters or mppt with inverters.
With micro inverters you cannot over provision the panels in a useful way, each panel or pair of panels has a micro inverter.
The mppt plus inverter system you absolutely can do that... but it scales poorly. Shading of a single panel effects the entire string, so the more panels you add to over provision the worse that effect gets.
So yes but actually no.
Micro inverters or mppt with inverters.
With micro inverters you cannot over provision the panels in a useful way, each panel or pair of panels has a micro inverter.
The mppt plus inverter system you absolutely can do that... but it scales poorly. Shading of a single panel effects the entire string, so the more panels you add to over provision the worse that effect gets.
So yes but actually no.
It seems like there should be some intermediary per panel smart bypass circuit for pairing up with mptt architecture for this to keep system cost down in these seasonal areas.
Edit: turns out there are products for mptt strings called power optimizers that seem to help with this very thing I hypothesized.. at least one company offering them is SolarEdge
Edit: turns out there are products for mptt strings called power optimizers that seem to help with this very thing I hypothesized.. at least one company offering them is SolarEdge
They're almost as expensive as per panel micro inverters.
There's no free lunch here.
There's no free lunch here.
Panels are surface area limited. The maximum my house and land can support is the 10kW I already have.
Honestly I'm pretty skeptical of residential rooftop solar - it's not even close to the solution, it's just a cost optimization we shouldn't actually need.
Honestly I'm pretty skeptical of residential rooftop solar - it's not even close to the solution, it's just a cost optimization we shouldn't actually need.
In almost all cases you lack the area for doing that. And that's not even considering exposure, as in winter most north facing panels on a roof won't get any direct sun because it's lower on the horizon
Depending on your case. Where I live (NYC, a barebones Great Depression-era building) my electric bills skyrocket (3-5x) in the summer due to the house being heated by the sunlight. The roof is white, but it helps moderately. Heating in the winter takes much less energy, especially if we factor in all the electric devices inside that also release some heat.
Storing a half-day's worth of electricity, and powering stuff from a solar panel at daytime, would likely let my apartment stop consuming external electric power in the summer.
Assuming my apartment consumes no more than 15 kWh during the hottest days (according to the meter), a moderate 8 kWh battery, and $1000 worth of solar panels, would suffice, given the room and a permission to mount the solar panels somewhere.
Storing a half-day's worth of electricity, and powering stuff from a solar panel at daytime, would likely let my apartment stop consuming external electric power in the summer.
Assuming my apartment consumes no more than 15 kWh during the hottest days (according to the meter), a moderate 8 kWh battery, and $1000 worth of solar panels, would suffice, given the room and a permission to mount the solar panels somewhere.
You could potentially skip the storage by cooling aggressively on the solar and then not cooling when it is dark.
> The pile of rock required to heat an average home for a couple of weeks handily outweighs the house itself.
Maybe I'm failing to follow the intended argument here, but I do not see what is expensive about this. Houses are hollow; they do not weigh all that much. Dirt is cheap, especially when sourced locally.
Maybe I'm failing to follow the intended argument here, but I do not see what is expensive about this. Houses are hollow; they do not weigh all that much. Dirt is cheap, especially when sourced locally.
The only place where you could conceivably store this without having another conversion or lossy transport loop is under the house. It's not exactly trivial to excavate that much space under an existing structure without having the whole thing come down. I think I've figured that part out but it would still be legally quite shaky and it might destroy the resale value of the house unless it can be made compact enough that it would fit within a standard basement. Insulation is the key problem to solve here.
The article never frames this as off-grid storage for individual homeowners. They say
> A typical site is a factory, power plant, or town with a large earthen mound at the edge. The mound might be the size of a house for a smaller factory, and up to many football fields for a large power plant. Surrounding the earthen mound will be high-density, low-profile solar arrays.
I agree that trying to give every suburban house its own rock pile would not be very practical.
> A typical site is a factory, power plant, or town with a large earthen mound at the edge. The mound might be the size of a house for a smaller factory, and up to many football fields for a large power plant. Surrounding the earthen mound will be high-density, low-profile solar arrays.
I agree that trying to give every suburban house its own rock pile would not be very practical.
> The article never frames this as off-grid storage for individual homeowners
I know. See my original comment at the top.
I know. See my original comment at the top.
That depends on how hot you are prepared to get your rock.
I’m also off grid, also suffer in the winter (although a spot of hydro power is going to alleviate that somewhat), and have also thought about thermal storage - I actually calculated that a 20ft container filled with sand could give us thousands of kWh, as long as the sand could get up to ~600C.
At that temperature you of course have to think about making really damned sure no water gets in there, but it makes the volume of material more manageable. Would still work with resistive heating, energy out would be trickier but not impossible to engineer something that wouldn’t explode.
I’m also off grid, also suffer in the winter (although a spot of hydro power is going to alleviate that somewhat), and have also thought about thermal storage - I actually calculated that a 20ft container filled with sand could give us thousands of kWh, as long as the sand could get up to ~600C.
At that temperature you of course have to think about making really damned sure no water gets in there, but it makes the volume of material more manageable. Would still work with resistive heating, energy out would be trickier but not impossible to engineer something that wouldn’t explode.
Insulation volume was the issue for me. Sand works well enough, the ideal setup would be - as far as I've figured this out - a sinkable construct that has insulation in the bottom and the walls that you can put together in a modular way by slipping one part after another into a basement. Then you sink it in the same way that you sink a well. Indeed, keeping water out of it essential but you can test where the water table is and keep a very healthy margin. The 'instant steam explosion' angle in case of a water leak in the house is one of the reasons I've never actually done it.
> I've done a lot of spreadsheets on this kind of solution
As an investor - what RoIC do you want to see when doing initial analysis
(for example, $10M capex per system, with 10,000 systems TAM )
As an investor - what RoIC do you want to see when doing initial analysis
(for example, $10M capex per system, with 10,000 systems TAM )
I only looked at this from the homeowner perspective as a DIY project, but if I were to look at it from a utility scale commercial perspective I'd say the first thing I'd do would be to compare it to wind power because where I live that is probably one of the most efficient ways to generate renewable energy even if there is no storage option. It nicely dovetails with solar. When I did this at the residential scale in an off-grid house I built I managed to get it - fairly easily - to the point where we did not need a generator at all, even though we had one.
Energy storage yes, electricity storage no. Very limited utility and questionable use of solar PV, which has about a 20% conversion efficiency of solar energy to electricity. Seems like a lot of extra steps to make heat.
One of the biggest uses of residential energy is heating/cooling. Especially in winter months where PV generation is significantly lower (I have seen numbers of 2-5x summer generation), having "free" heat could be quite valuable.
Now, do the economics shake out for storing heat to deliver in winter? No idea, but the idea is not far fetched. Outside of bitcoin mining, there are few uses which can soak up the increasing glut of midday PV generation. Anything that can seasonally store that (even at terrible efficiencies) is valuable. What is going to be the most economic option? No idea. My personal bet is iron-air batteries, but there are a lot of contenders in the space that are competing for widespread adoption.
Now, do the economics shake out for storing heat to deliver in winter? No idea, but the idea is not far fetched. Outside of bitcoin mining, there are few uses which can soak up the increasing glut of midday PV generation. Anything that can seasonally store that (even at terrible efficiencies) is valuable. What is going to be the most economic option? No idea. My personal bet is iron-air batteries, but there are a lot of contenders in the space that are competing for widespread adoption.
late to the game, there are villiage/town scale thermal batteries operating in northern scandinavia useing sand inside a conventinal style insulated silos, everything is off the shelf civil engineering equipment.
any company offering similar tech will need a sharp pencil.
I live off grid and am considering adding thermal storage as part of my system to allow for unatended background heating while on the road in the winter, where 2500 liters of water will provide pre heat for domestic hot water, and as a semi passive thermal siphon for area heating
The University of California (Berkeley) is also building thermal storage. Currently they are excavating a 20-million-liter tank under one of the athletic fields.
This is confusing, why PV to heat the dirt? Black paint will do it from sunlight directly. Or circulating hot liquid. Way cheaper and more efficient than PV at collecting heat from the sun.
Water will be limited to 100C, and tanks are going to be way more expensive to maintain.
You don’t get much long-term storage with your black paint as it’s just going to heat the surface. The point here is to heat up a big enough pile of dirt that you can draw out power months later.
You don’t get much long-term storage with your black paint as it’s just going to heat the surface. The point here is to heat up a big enough pile of dirt that you can draw out power months later.
Liquid doesn’t need to mean water? Traditional solar thermal systems use special liquids that can get way more hot than 100C.
You can get to around 200C with oil-based media. But oil goes bad pretty quickly, and it leaches tons of crap out of everything.
Above that temperature, you need molten salts or liquid metals that are extremely corrosive. Your other option is to use gaseous media instead.
Above that temperature, you need molten salts or liquid metals that are extremely corrosive. Your other option is to use gaseous media instead.
And those have the problem of not having enough density so they'll be pretty inefficient.
Yeah good point. I think the point about cost is the real crux here, regardless of working temp. (CSP has used molten salt but it is quite expensive to store and maintain.)
Because they're trying to go way up on temperature. The idea is to get dirt up to 600°C. It's easy to get warm water from solar, and solar water heaters have been around for decades, if not centuries. But that's well below 100°C. If you start from electricity, you can reach any temperature up to plasma. If you're just storing warm water, you can't get much of the energy back. E = (T2-T1)/T2, remember.
They've made no progress on getting the energy out of their heated dirt. They want to make a hot dirt powered boiler - run pipes through the dirt, put in water, and get steam. Not hot water, superheated steam. That's the hard part, and it will have to be custom.
Small steam turbines are available. Siemens has a whole range.[1] They start around 750KW, at the high end of automotive scale. Siemens can sell you a matching generator. When these guys can power one of those, it's real.
Right now, it's three guys. They need VC funding and a really good boiler engineer. The goal should be a working prototype at about 500KW scale. That would be a big enough prototype to get some meaningful efficiency measurements.
(Maintenance will be tough. You can't turn the heat source off.)
[1] file:///home/john/Downloads/SE-Brochure-Dresser-Rand-Steam-Turbines-2021-pdf_Original_20file.pdf
They've made no progress on getting the energy out of their heated dirt. They want to make a hot dirt powered boiler - run pipes through the dirt, put in water, and get steam. Not hot water, superheated steam. That's the hard part, and it will have to be custom.
Small steam turbines are available. Siemens has a whole range.[1] They start around 750KW, at the high end of automotive scale. Siemens can sell you a matching generator. When these guys can power one of those, it's real.
Right now, it's three guys. They need VC funding and a really good boiler engineer. The goal should be a working prototype at about 500KW scale. That would be a big enough prototype to get some meaningful efficiency measurements.
(Maintenance will be tough. You can't turn the heat source off.)
[1] file:///home/john/Downloads/SE-Brochure-Dresser-Rand-Steam-Turbines-2021-pdf_Original_20file.pdf
Correct link: [1]
[1] https://www.siemens-energy.com/global/en/home/products-servi...
[1] https://www.siemens-energy.com/global/en/home/products-servi...
My understanding is this is for excess PV capacity. But I think they should address this! Their plan is to heat deep inside a big pile of dirt using resistive heating elements and then pump the heat out in pipes. Maybe it's hard or expensive to add solar heating into the system? But why couldn't they pump it in? Maybe they don't have extra space because the dirt mound is covered in PV panels.
The sibling comment by theptip explains this well for this specific case, but the other sibling comment still seems confused, so I will explain more broadly: productive uses of heat are all about the temperature. The boundaries vary, but "high-grade" heat is roughly 300-500C, medium-grade is 100-300C, and low-grade <100C. Up to a certain point [0], heat is easier to use the hotter it is.
High-grade heat can be easily turned into electricity with a turbine, or reused in an industrial process (the entire point of a nuclear reactor is to create heat in this temperature range!) Medium-grade heat can still be used for some processes or used to generate electricity, but the electricity generation will be less efficient. Low-grade heat is under 100C and is a lot harder to use. You cannot economically generate electricity from it, or use it for most industrial processes, so use cases often focus on district heating.
The problem with these low-grade-heat district heating schemes, or more broadly any use of low-grade heat, is the economics. Let's take your idea. The efficiency from sunlight to heat is indeed high (much higher than PV panel -> resistive element) but the heat generated is all low-grade heat.
So what's the root cause here, why is low grade heat usually not economic to use? It comes back to two main causes: 1) efficiency, and 2) storage. Most power is generated from turbines that use heat - a type of heat engine. Carnot efficiency is the maximum theoretical efficiency of a heat engine. Carnot efficiency is η = 1 – Tcold/Thot where temperatures are absolute temperatures (Kelvin/Rankine.) In other words, 7.7% for 50C->25C (298K->323K), 37% for 200C->25C, and 61% for 500C->25C. Note that this is _theoretical_ maximum efficiency; real world efficiency varies quite a bit - from ~1/2 to ~1/10th of Carnot efficiency at peak depending on your heat engine. The second, storage costs, are even more important. You need to insulate your warm object to keep it warm, and if your heat is low-grade, then it is spread out across a huge volume.
Back to your idea, your "paint the dirt black" idea will generate far more heat, but very low-grade and entirely non-economic to use. You will have a somewhat warm pile of dirt, but nobody really wants a somewhat warm pile of dirt. This is the same reason why you see people, logically, tearing down their high-efficiency solar water heaters to install low-efficiency solar panels.
"Use solar panels to resistively heat the dirt", on the other hand, is less efficient and generates far less heat - but it generates high-grade heat. This startup proposes to eventually sell that heat to power plants, to generate electricity directly; and if you're doing that, the temperature of the heat is critical. As you can see from the Carnot efficiency, a power plant couldn't economically do anything with a warm pile of dirt, a solar water heater, or other similar technologies. But they _can_ do something with a source of high-grade heat - namely, they can run the turbines that currently run on fossil fuels. In other words, you can solve the seasonal solar curve problem and have constant electricity production year-round, even in northerly climes.
[0] Above - very roughly - 500C, it is harder to use the waste heat efficiently, because the engineering gets a lot harder, but the theoretical maximum efficiency is higher. That's one reason why there are a lot of efforts to try to build nuclear reactors working at these higher temperatures (see: molten salt reactors.)
High-grade heat can be easily turned into electricity with a turbine, or reused in an industrial process (the entire point of a nuclear reactor is to create heat in this temperature range!) Medium-grade heat can still be used for some processes or used to generate electricity, but the electricity generation will be less efficient. Low-grade heat is under 100C and is a lot harder to use. You cannot economically generate electricity from it, or use it for most industrial processes, so use cases often focus on district heating.
The problem with these low-grade-heat district heating schemes, or more broadly any use of low-grade heat, is the economics. Let's take your idea. The efficiency from sunlight to heat is indeed high (much higher than PV panel -> resistive element) but the heat generated is all low-grade heat.
So what's the root cause here, why is low grade heat usually not economic to use? It comes back to two main causes: 1) efficiency, and 2) storage. Most power is generated from turbines that use heat - a type of heat engine. Carnot efficiency is the maximum theoretical efficiency of a heat engine. Carnot efficiency is η = 1 – Tcold/Thot where temperatures are absolute temperatures (Kelvin/Rankine.) In other words, 7.7% for 50C->25C (298K->323K), 37% for 200C->25C, and 61% for 500C->25C. Note that this is _theoretical_ maximum efficiency; real world efficiency varies quite a bit - from ~1/2 to ~1/10th of Carnot efficiency at peak depending on your heat engine. The second, storage costs, are even more important. You need to insulate your warm object to keep it warm, and if your heat is low-grade, then it is spread out across a huge volume.
Back to your idea, your "paint the dirt black" idea will generate far more heat, but very low-grade and entirely non-economic to use. You will have a somewhat warm pile of dirt, but nobody really wants a somewhat warm pile of dirt. This is the same reason why you see people, logically, tearing down their high-efficiency solar water heaters to install low-efficiency solar panels.
"Use solar panels to resistively heat the dirt", on the other hand, is less efficient and generates far less heat - but it generates high-grade heat. This startup proposes to eventually sell that heat to power plants, to generate electricity directly; and if you're doing that, the temperature of the heat is critical. As you can see from the Carnot efficiency, a power plant couldn't economically do anything with a warm pile of dirt, a solar water heater, or other similar technologies. But they _can_ do something with a source of high-grade heat - namely, they can run the turbines that currently run on fossil fuels. In other words, you can solve the seasonal solar curve problem and have constant electricity production year-round, even in northerly climes.
[0] Above - very roughly - 500C, it is harder to use the waste heat efficiently, because the engineering gets a lot harder, but the theoretical maximum efficiency is higher. That's one reason why there are a lot of efforts to try to build nuclear reactors working at these higher temperatures (see: molten salt reactors.)
Excellent explanation. I could add, typical Thermal Electric Station (Gas or Coal) could have significantly larger working temperature than Nuclear, because more strict safety measures for Nuclear on nearly same level technologies.
For example, Nuc typically don't cross 400C, when Gas/Coal could work on 450C or even more.
Plus, non-Nuc could use some more exotic technologies, like MHD (magnetohydrodynamic) generator, to provide much more efficiency of power generation, or CO2 turbine to make installation much smaller. (Theoretically, somebody could build Nuclear MHD device, but it will not pass safety restrictions).
For example, Nuc typically don't cross 400C, when Gas/Coal could work on 450C or even more.
Plus, non-Nuc could use some more exotic technologies, like MHD (magnetohydrodynamic) generator, to provide much more efficiency of power generation, or CO2 turbine to make installation much smaller. (Theoretically, somebody could build Nuclear MHD device, but it will not pass safety restrictions).
Something I forgot to mention - because of the low temperatures involved, district heating people love to talk about the potential use of low-grade heat, but the overwhelming majority of district heating is sourced from high-grade heat. By far the largest installation of district heating is across the former USSR, where the source is mostly nuclear. The USSR used nuclear not for want of industrial processes or black paint, but because the engineering involved is far more practical when you start with high grade heat. From an old report on Soviet district heating: at -23C, buildings were supplied with water around 80C and returned it around 57C. That may sound like it is within the ballpark of low-grade heat, but it required a plant sendout temperature in excess of 150C to get that 80C building supply. And, of course, your heat source has to be higher than your plant sendout temp... and now you're at fairly high temperatures. At that point, you might as well build a nuclear combined heat and power plant for maximum efficiency, which is in fact what the Soviets did.
If you want to do practical district heating, you should look to the Soviets. Unfortunately, most of this information is available in Russian, on physical paper.
[0] http://waterworkshistory.us/DH/1967USSRreport.pdf page 18, figure 2
If you want to do practical district heating, you should look to the Soviets. Unfortunately, most of this information is available in Russian, on physical paper.
[0] http://waterworkshistory.us/DH/1967USSRreport.pdf page 18, figure 2
Another country with highly developed district heating system is Denmark. They heavily invested in this technology since the 1970s, and currently around 2/3 of all households have district heating, in the capital, Copenhagen, 98%. Moreover, more than 60% of the energy used for these systems comes from renewables. No nuclear power involved (which hast been banned in the country since 1985). A few sources:
- https://dbdh.org/all-about-district-energy/district-heating-...
- https://stateofgreen.com/en/news/new-plans-to-expand-the-dan...
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403212...
It is true that Denmark has a large district heating system - their national system is nearly as big as that of, say, St. Petersburg. But I think the Danes should be honest with themselves about the reality. The heat comes from burning stuff (wood/biomass, trash, and fossil fuels), the overwhelming majority of biomass is imported - and about 40% of those imports are from non-EU countries. If Denmark burns a tree, that is considered to be zero emissions, because - they argue - those emissions have already been accounted for in a change in _Danish_ land use and forestry. If you are deforesting a foreign country to warm your house, that’s a) not accounted for in your national emissions statistics and b) often not accounted for in the foreign country’s emissions either. So you get heat for free. Of course, if you forget to replant the trees, or they fail to grow back, then the emissions are worse than coal, because coal is underground, trees are not, and thus the surface albedo changes are significant.
The steel-man case for Denmark is that trees usually do grow back, and indeed, global _tree_ cover is substantially higher than it was 35 years ago. But global _forest_ cover is still shrinking, and much of the wood entering Denmark comes from forests. Forest cover is more important than tree cover - for the aforementioned reason of albedo changes, but also biodiversity.
Where things really get absurd is when you begin to calculate the area of land you have to turn into a tree farm to keep your homes warm. Or when you calculate the market effects of buying a huge amount of trees - even if all _your_ trees were good ethical trees from a farm, you have just consumed a large amount of the supply and thus financially incentivized cutting down old-growth forests elsewhere - for example look at the history of Ikea’s wood use. If there were more Denmarks, and it was not just a small country with the population of the Chicago area, there would be massive worldwide devastation.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not an absolute opponent of biomass. It is true that burning things is a great source of high-grade heat. It can play a small role in a sustainable energy mix. But it is not the free lunch Danes think it is, and certainly not at the scale they consume it.
The steel-man case for Denmark is that trees usually do grow back, and indeed, global _tree_ cover is substantially higher than it was 35 years ago. But global _forest_ cover is still shrinking, and much of the wood entering Denmark comes from forests. Forest cover is more important than tree cover - for the aforementioned reason of albedo changes, but also biodiversity.
Where things really get absurd is when you begin to calculate the area of land you have to turn into a tree farm to keep your homes warm. Or when you calculate the market effects of buying a huge amount of trees - even if all _your_ trees were good ethical trees from a farm, you have just consumed a large amount of the supply and thus financially incentivized cutting down old-growth forests elsewhere - for example look at the history of Ikea’s wood use. If there were more Denmarks, and it was not just a small country with the population of the Chicago area, there would be massive worldwide devastation.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not an absolute opponent of biomass. It is true that burning things is a great source of high-grade heat. It can play a small role in a sustainable energy mix. But it is not the free lunch Danes think it is, and certainly not at the scale they consume it.
There's very few materials cheaper than dirt.
Solid state solar panels should be more reliable than any hydronic system.
Though I suppose their heat recovery system is probably hydronic.
Solid state solar panels should be more reliable than any hydronic system.
Though I suppose their heat recovery system is probably hydronic.
Snow load is not mentioned when using horizontal panels. In higher latitudes, solar is relatively uncommon because of the sunlight deficit in winter. Panels that are deployed are usually placed at an incline equal to the latitude (or even vertically) to capitalize on free snow shedding and to regularize/maximize year-round minimum output (i.e. bring up winter by bringing down summer). Mounting solar panels flat is sensible from the standpoint of this technology (no solar output needed in the winter, that's what the storage is for!) but may be breaking a lot of ground (and panels) with horizontal panels in snow country.
Why go throught the extra solar -> electricity -> resistive heating -> soil instead of directly doing solar -> heating a metal rod -> soil?
Cutting out the conversion steps should be more efficient.
Cutting out the conversion steps should be more efficient.
If the electricity is free, efficiency does not matter that much. The capex of the storage system might matter a lot more. In which case, heating up a big mass might be more economically feasible than battery installations.
I wonder if any heat pumps can emit the 600C they target for the storage mounds. If the COP of such a device was over 1, they could store more heat energy than the PV’s emit in wattage.
Also, they could use the waste cold air to cool the solar panels, which increases their efficiency.
Also, they could use the waste cold air to cool the solar panels, which increases their efficiency.
The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory was working on energy storage involving a silo of hot sand.[1] But that was probably cut by the Trump Administration.[2]
The sand scheme involves putting hot sand into the top of the silo, and draining out sand into a heat exchanger at the bottom. So you can have more storage than you have heat exchanger capacity. The "ultra cheap" approach in the article requires resistance heaters and plumbing all through the cheap dirt.
Molten salt has also been used for this, successfully.
[1] https://www.solarpaces.org/nrel-results-support-cheap-long-d...
[2] https://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/northwest/trump-congress...
The sand scheme involves putting hot sand into the top of the silo, and draining out sand into a heat exchanger at the bottom. So you can have more storage than you have heat exchanger capacity. The "ultra cheap" approach in the article requires resistance heaters and plumbing all through the cheap dirt.
Molten salt has also been used for this, successfully.
[1] https://www.solarpaces.org/nrel-results-support-cheap-long-d...
[2] https://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/northwest/trump-congress...
Im shocked, and a little incredulous, thats its feasible to heat soil to 600C.
ok but what's the upfront and maintenance costs for the buried bricks & pipes system?
LNG is standardized, it's readily available, and existing infrastructure already exists.
how is this new system better?
LNG is standardized, it's readily available, and existing infrastructure already exists.
how is this new system better?
> The purpose of Standard Thermal is to make energy from solar PV available 24/7/365 at a price that is competitive with US natural gas.
They compare to natural gas. Not the cheapest alternative.
>Pipes run through the pile, and fluid flowing through them removes heat to supply the customer
Just basic district level geothermal heat pumps do the same. You don't need to heat the soil. Just drill down and install pipes. Earth generates heat. What is the cost difference now?
They compare to natural gas. Not the cheapest alternative.
>Pipes run through the pile, and fluid flowing through them removes heat to supply the customer
Just basic district level geothermal heat pumps do the same. You don't need to heat the soil. Just drill down and install pipes. Earth generates heat. What is the cost difference now?
> Just basic district level geothermal heat pumps do the same.
This doesn't with everywhere though? Because of geology?
This doesn't with everywhere though? Because of geology?
Between this and CATLs $10/KWh Sodium battery, its game over for fossil fuel based economies.
Mods, I submitted this exact url four days ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44963261
Why didn’t this submission redirect to mine?
Why didn’t this submission redirect to mine?
HN doesn't work that way. Resubmissions are allowed, especially high quality ones that don't get traction. But links to prior submissions are always added, and usually only if there's good conversation about the prior link.
So because it didn’t have traction they created a new discussion?
Once the mods invited me to resubmit one of my own links by email a few days after I had posted, because they thought it was a good link but it didn't get traction the first time.
(Unfortunately I didn't see the email until many months later, IIRC...)
(Unfortunately I didn't see the email until many months later, IIRC...)
I've found that lots of people get viscerally mad when it's pointed out that solar pv is not reliable year long and that the batteries to make it seasonally reliable are wildly expensive.
I wonder if they have had issues trying to solve a problem so many people insist doesn't exist.
I wonder if they have had issues trying to solve a problem so many people insist doesn't exist.
> I've found that lots of people get viscerally mad when it's pointed out that solar pv is not reliable year long
Solar PV is very reliable year long. It is the day-night cycle that requires batteries, for seasonal offset they do not work and probably never will.
In the off-season they still work just fine, they just make much less power. Which you can offset to some degree by a good balance between wind and solar at the grid scale (not at the private dwelling scale, unless you live rurally).
I'm on PV during the day time all year round in a densely built up region in Western Europe. In the summer we overproduce a ridiculous amount that we can't consume ourselves (though I'm getting better at finding good uses for it), in the winter it is touch-and-go during the day. Netmetering is enough to give me a negative electricity bill which goes towards paying whatever NG we still buy (which isn't a lot, we spent a good bit of money on insulating this house as much as we could without rebuilding it).
> I wonder if they have had issues trying to solve a problem so many people insist doesn't exist.
Nobody who knows anything about PV is going to insist the problem does not exist.
Solar PV is very reliable year long. It is the day-night cycle that requires batteries, for seasonal offset they do not work and probably never will.
In the off-season they still work just fine, they just make much less power. Which you can offset to some degree by a good balance between wind and solar at the grid scale (not at the private dwelling scale, unless you live rurally).
I'm on PV during the day time all year round in a densely built up region in Western Europe. In the summer we overproduce a ridiculous amount that we can't consume ourselves (though I'm getting better at finding good uses for it), in the winter it is touch-and-go during the day. Netmetering is enough to give me a negative electricity bill which goes towards paying whatever NG we still buy (which isn't a lot, we spent a good bit of money on insulating this house as much as we could without rebuilding it).
> I wonder if they have had issues trying to solve a problem so many people insist doesn't exist.
Nobody who knows anything about PV is going to insist the problem does not exist.
> Solar PV is very reliable year long. It is the day-night cycle that requires batteries, for seasonal offset they do not work and probably never will.
You acknowledged that you're wrong in the very same paragraph.
I suspect you're misunderstanding what the word reliable means in this context.
You acknowledged that you're wrong in the very same paragraph.
I suspect you're misunderstanding what the word reliable means in this context.
The word you're looking for is viable.
PVs are very reliable at converting photons to electrons. However if they don't get enough photons, like during night or winter up north, they're not a viable energy source for many uses.
PVs are very reliable at converting photons to electrons. However if they don't get enough photons, like during night or winter up north, they're not a viable energy source for many uses.
PV and batteries are good for a 24 hour day/night cycle. It's not good for a 365 day surplus/deficit cycle.
Maybe they are just angry because you're being dishonest. That would be natural and expected. Do you try this often?
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I think this niche of 'very long duration, very constant slow rate of discharge' is clever, and it would suit industrial heat consumers but could also suit district heating for buildings in a climate that's predictably in need of heating all winter long (Canada for example).
They seem to have a decent grasp of the fundamentals, both of the technology and how to commercially carve a niche. I wish them well, and thank you for the post.