Well, **** me!

www.abc.net.au/catalyst/

Fantastic show on catalyst tonight. It turns out that batteries will destroy the "base load" argument.......destroy the need for fossil fuel.......destroy the nuclear powerstation idea........

I'm not a tech sort of person but it seems a real game changer

Nah won't happen......
The gov won't let it, when they sold off the power stations to private enteprise they also guaranteed the profit of those companies.
also think about this, if 50% of the population went to the battery systems who pays for the pole and wire grid? The remaing 50%? That would be to expensive and then they to would leave the grid resulting in a total collapse of the power system.
That journo from the ABC did an interview on radio earlier on today and mentioned a few of the potential social problems, tonights show was on the praise it up and sprook it to the world.

But your right interesting show.

Didn't we lease the poles and wires to the Chinese???

I hope you're right!

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log man said..
Well, **** me!

www.abc.net.au/catalyst/

Fantastic show on catalyst tonight. It turns out that batteries will destroy the "base load" argument.......destroy the need for fossil fuel.......destroy the nuclear powerstation idea........

I'm not a tech sort of person but it seems a real game changer

I hope you're right!

I've often mused to myself that if there was a way of storing the heat that engulfs our home all summer, and using it to keep the place warm in winter, we wouldn't need any heating or air-conditioning at all. Wouldn't that be brilliant?

Very interesting program...

My solar system is ordered and on the way

I think baseload is an interesting question... I wonder how energy use will change in the future... as stuff is invented that we MUST have that we don't even know we need. My suspicion is the current consumption trend is not linear and this may continue... Can we really generate enough power from solar to power my teleporter - who knows

if you really had a teleporter you wouldn't be hanging around here.

Looks like the coal rush is final over

I guess the big thing(amongst many) is the reduction of Carbon Dioxide entering the atmosphere. Is this the technology that we help us keep Global Warming to a managable level.

What Global Warming?........ Or are you talking about the spin the Gov are sprooking to raise the revenue from taxes.

The great thing about the batteries is it won't matter if you believe the science of not it is the way to go.

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Pugwash said...
Very interesting program...

My solar system is ordered and on the way

Same with my off-grid system - although with some research and a consultant that knows his stuff, I've managed to save some $$$ in the short-term by having less batteries and working them a bit harder (down to 65-70% rather than 80%) so that in 7-8 years (not 15 or so) they can be changed out for new, much more sustainable batteries.

I also have a PV solar grid-connect system on my roof at home (in town), and a small solar system installed already for powering a bore at the farm with another tiny ebay PV/battery combo unit installed on a shed that powers lighting, electric-fence, speakers and phone charger.

Just one question for all you people who think that batteries are going to get rid of the grid . Maybe several questions.
(1) how many days worth of battery storage are you willing to fund out of your own pocket to go off grid? Are you going to have the 7 or 8 days worth of storage that you might require to get through winter without having to buy in power from somewhere? Before you respond by telling me that 7 or 8 days backup is too much consider this point. In winter you generate less power from your solar PV system but you use more for heating at night. In my case a sunny winter's day generates roughly my usage, so the system is in balance with one day's storage. But a cloudy day will not recharge the battery. 4 or 5 cloudy days in a row is normal. There are about 100 days a year when my generation is too low to provide more than the barest surplus to carry forward for more than a day.
(2) there are a lot of places which aren't suitable for solar systems. If you haven't got a large chunk of your roof aligned to the North and free from shade, solar power is a dodgy proposition at best. There are lots of suburbs where the streets run in any old direction, not East West or North South, which means that lots of houses aren't very well aligned to collect solar radiation. How are they going to go off grid?
(3) there are also lots of blocks of flats being built and already built. You can't get enough solar PV on the roof of a block of flats to cover the needs of all the units underneath it and the shortfall gets greater the taller the block of flats. How do they go off grid? And how do they equitably distribute any solar PV that they do have among the units?

Unless batteries plummet in price they simply aren't affordable as an off grid option. I will be getting a system, but I won't be kidding myself that I actually save any money in the long term. And I certainly won't be going off grid. Security of supply is too important

All of this excitement and hype over batteries seems to me to be a lot like the hype over nuclear power back in the early 1960s. Apparently it was going to be so cheap that you wouldn't even bother metering it.

Very interesting program. My only question is how long do the lithium batteries last? I know there is a 10 year guarantee., but wouldn't they become less efficient as they age?

My tip is to buy lithium shares today.

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Knottedup said..
Looks like the coal rush is final over

Oh dear.... you clearly haven't spent enough time on little black rock dot com... it has so m a n y uses and benefits Did you know it is full of naturally occurring heavy metals and other nice stuff like uranium... which is also natural... and great for the environment...

Jokes aside, met coal or coke is here to stay... thermal coal???

I've been waiting for another mining boom for 5 years involving battery materials... I have liked lithium for that whole time and more recently graphene. One the of chaps on the show last night was playing with zinc bromine batteries... who knows where that will lead... What we do know - in the next 5 or 10 years, we'll crack a super battery (high energy, fast charge) and that will lead to another resources boom... just like the coal boom of nearly 10 years ago. BTW - this is not investment advice like "buy silver" One wise-old mining industry guy once told me to "stay away from specialist or boutique minerals that are not readily tradeable in the open market".

And on the show and @Mr Milk, some of the things you raise were addressed in the show. 7 to 8 days of energy storage in batteries is what some are doing. The show also addressed solar, energy storage and a model for how that can work in residential complexes.

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adolf said..
Very interesting program. My only question is how long do the lithium batteries last? I know there is a 10 year guarantee., but wouldn't they become less efficient as they age?

My tip is to buy lithium shares today.

The lithium battery on my electric bike lasted less than a year. Maybe 100 charge cycles. I'm still in dispute with the kids on the Gold Coast who sold me the system

Mr Milk
Maybe you didn't see this great show as a lot of us did.
All your questions above were answered.

There are plenty of options for those who didn't want to go totally off the grid and I suspect most won't go totally off the grid.
Although some as now will need to do so.
You can use your battery to store power you produced during the day for some or all the power you need once the sun goes down.
You can buy smaller batteries and add to them if you wish with the back up of the grid.
Batteries will get better and cheaper over time.
You can feed into the grid once your batteries are topped up OR very importantly when the grid is calling out for your renewable power.

As explained in the show the grid doesn't store power it needs to manage power to the meet the needs of the grid.
It was also explained how in the future the grid will be calling on renewables to help out in times of need.
It actually happens now but no verbal credit, in some case no financial credit is given by the those of us who feed into the grid In times of great need.

I guess we all have heard that renewables are not helpful but when you know the facts that peak power is required during the day when industry calls on it. Yes non industrial peak biggest need is when people go home and need to cook ....... well this is when those on batteries will use their stored power.
This is when the cost of electricity is or will be at it's most costly.

The facts are even right now coal power can NOT react to the peaks it's up to a renewable like hydro or gas (which can actually be manufactured and thus can be renewable) to cater for ramped up need.
Funny how what we have been told that renewables can't cut it.
Well in the future it will be renewables that will be the only thing needed.

This show was about solar but as we know there are many ways to produce electricity other than coal, nuclear and mined gas.
Yep even at night eg wind, tidal ....

Also remember that as power is transported in the grid there are significant losses.
When I pump my power into the grid my neighbours can use it thus very little loss in transportation.

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Mr Milk said..
Just one question for all you people who think that batteries are going to get rid of the grid . Maybe several questions.
(1) how many days worth of battery storage are you willing to fund out of your own pocket to go off grid? Are you going to have the 7 or 8 days worth of storage that you might require to get through winter without having to buy in power from somewhere? Before you respond by telling me that 7 or 8 days backup is too much consider this point. In winter you generate less power from your solar PV system but you use more for heating at night. In my case a sunny winter's day generates roughly my usage, so the system is in balance with one day's storage. But a cloudy day will not recharge the battery. 4 or 5 cloudy days in a row is normal. There are about 100 days a year when my generation is too low to provide more than the barest surplus to carry forward for more than a day.
(2) there are a lot of places which aren't suitable for solar systems. If you haven't got a large chunk of your roof aligned to the North and free from shade, solar power is a dodgy proposition at best. There are lots of suburbs where the streets run in any old direction, not East West or North South, which means that lots of houses aren't very well aligned to collect solar radiation. How are they going to go off grid?
(3) there are also lots of blocks of flats being built and already built. You can't get enough solar PV on the roof of a block of flats to cover the needs of all the units underneath it and the shortfall gets greater the taller the block of flats. How do they go off grid? And how do they equitably distribute any solar PV that they do have among the units?

Unless batteries plummet in price they simply aren't affordable as an off grid option. I will be getting a system, but I won't be kidding myself that I actually save any money in the long term. And I certainly won't be going off grid. Security of supply is too important

All of this excitement and hype over batteries seems to me to be a lot like the hype over nuclear power back in the early 1960s. Apparently it was going to be so cheap that you wouldn't even bother metering it.

Gen backups are easy to install, cost very little and charge batteries fairly quickly (very common in rural areas where grid-connected failures happen regularly and can go for days). Otherwise (if available in your area) small wind turbines work wonders through winter as a backup and will charge up the batteries overnight whilst you're sleeping.

Finally, rarely will you get 7-8 days in a row where your system isn't producing less than the charge minimum. If so don't be so precious, leave the heater alone and find a suitable volunteer to share body heat.

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Sailhack said..

Mr Milk said..


Unless batteries plummet in price they simply aren't affordable as an off grid option. I will be getting a system, but I won't be kidding myself that I actually save any money in the long term. And I certainly won't be going off grid. Security of supply is too important

All of this excitement and hype over batteries seems to me to be a lot like the hype over nuclear power back in the early 1960s. Apparently it was going to be so cheap that you wouldn't even bother metering it.

Gen backups are easy to install, cost very little and charge batteries fairly quickly (very common in rural areas where grid-connected failures happen regularly and can go for days). Otherwise (if available in your area) small wind turbines work wonders through winter as a backup and will charge up the batteries overnight whilst you're sleeping.

Finally, rarely will you get 7-8 days in a row where your system isn't producing less than the charge minimum. If so don't be so precious, leave the heater alone and find a suitable volunteer to share body heat.

Running a generator in the suburbs is just a little bit rude to your neighbours. Remember that Australia is one of the most highly urbanised countries in the world. And Sydney and Melbourne are trying to get denser.
Now I don't use 20 kWh a day. Even on a cold winter day I will use 10 or 11 kWh. I have 3 kW system on my roof which generates about 8 kWh on a sunny winter day but only about 3 if it is cloudy. So I go into energy debt if it is cloudy which I can expect for about 4 or 5 days at a time 3 or 4 times during winter. Even on a sunny day I'm not going to be recharging enough to repay that energy debt. I have to save that extra power up during the autumn.To get through winter using batteries and solar I would probably need about 50 kWh of backup. That's a room full of batteries.

Imagine the land fill space that is going to be needed for all these solar panels and batteries when the reach their use by date.

Mr Milk
I think it's best you are just happy you are helping others out by feeding your excess in to the grid and don't bother getting batteries.
Others will take advantage of the benefits of these batteries.

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p train said..
Imagine the land fill space that is going to be needed for all these solar panels and batteries when the reach their use by date.

Good old Pbrain.
Always one to think in a negative way.
Were you ever part of the No-illition?

Ever heard of recycling!
BTW imagine how many less hospitals we won't need to care for people with the fine particular crap dumped into the atmosphere by the burning of coal.
Not to mention the drain on funds to take care of these people.

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Knottedup said..
Mr Milk
I think it's best you are just happy you are helping others out by feeding your excess in to the grid and don't bother getting batteries.
Others will take advantage of the benefits of these batteries.

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Mr Milk said..


Unless batteries plummet in price they simply aren't affordable as an off grid option. I will be getting a system, but I won't be kidding myself that I actually save any money in the long term. And I certainly won't be going off grid. Security of supply is too important

All of this excitement and hype over batteries seems to me to be a lot like the hype over nuclear power back in the early 1960s. Apparently it was going to be so cheap that you wouldn't even bother metering it.

Read what I wrote earlier

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error; facts gone out the window; naysayer alert; human ingenuity to confined to the dustbin; chocolate rations have doubled today double unthink plus plus;

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building-integrated_photovoltaics

http://energysystems.meyerburger.com/en/products/facade/

www.solarpv.co.uk/solar-pv-facades.html

www.smartflex-solarfacades.eu/project.html

www1.ruukki.com/Construction/Solar-systems-for-walls/Liberta-Solar-facade---building-integrated-photovoltaic-cladding

Don't forget these systems are highly subsidised by the government, and even then they are rarely economic. So, it's being paid for by someone one way or another. If you don't want to pay for the grid, do you really want to pay many times that to go off grid?

Don't get me wrong, will be great when it does pay for itself, but we're not there yet.

We're not talking about going off grid! We're talking about selling power to each other instead of buying it from antiquated dirty coal plants.

Adriano
Thank you for putting your statement above so clear.

Thank you also off posting those the above photos.
And there are many more innovations on the way like embedding PV cells in window glass.
Shellhabour Square in Wollongong have a different style of wind turbines on the roofs of buildings.
No get that thought out of your mind of the "windmill" design. They are more like drums rotating.
Yes plenty of ideas happening today.

Harrow we are paying massively for the dumping of toxic gases and greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.
I'm wondering how the huge amount of public money that went to the coal industry for Carbon sequestration (the capture and long term storage of carbon) is going?
We don't hear anything about this fairytale these days.
Remember it would allow us to put the locked up carbon in the form of coal back onto play.
Because we could round up CO2 and put it under the ground in a secure way for ever.

Thanks Knotty for your polite and thoughtful post.

Let me back track a bit and make a broad statement.

The revolution in energy is only just beginning. Coal fired power in developed countries is as good as dead within the next 15-20 years. In developing countries, probably by 2050. Immensely increasing scales of production, dramatic efficiency gains in collection and storage technologies and massive uptake will combine with a new energy market that makes electricity cheaper for everyone because they are players in the market. We are almost at the point where new residential subdivision developers would be stupid not to go the micro-bank battery storage way. This year or next year in fact.

Now to your question. There are many new forms of energy capture being developed for building materials, including thin films, glass, paint, metals, fabric and plastics.

I don't think wind capture will ever form a major part of renewable energy production in built up areas. Large modern turbines in rural or open urban areas offer a far better economy of scale and extremely high efficiency. There are new turbine designs but the energy they produce for the economy of scale makes them a luxury add on rather than reliable power - unlike solar PV.

"Clean Coal" is a load of nonsense. That's why we haven't heard anything about it other than an ultra-expensive test plant in the US that costs more than solar and wind power. It is a fairytale for sure and even if it does become feasible in Australia, solar is moving so fast and getting so cheap, coal won't have a hope in hell of competing for cost and speed of implementation.

What's happening is that coal fired power companies can see the writing on the wall for coal and they see the pace of change towards renewables. That's why they're not doing much about carbon sequestration. Additionally, banks being smart about money don't want to touch domestic coal energy projects anymore.

We can set up solar PV power production and storage for new developments within weeks and within critical paths of construction schedules whereas to ramp up coal fired production and sequestration can take years of planning and huge cost.

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adolf said..
Very interesting program. My only question is how long do the lithium batteries last? I know there is a 10 year guarantee., but wouldn't they become less efficient as they age?

My tip is to buy lithium shares today.

Yup, or you could get a dud, which charges fine 10x, then stops holding it's charge, then you have a sh!t fight trying to get it replaced/repaired.
My 96x26650 (3000mah) has a whole bank which is farked after less than 20 charges, I don't think it ever had the claimed capacity either.
I've had bad LiPO's, LiPoFe4's and Li-ion.

Tesla car batteries are just banks of 18650's.
Battery chemistry just isn't as reliable as people have been led to believe, but I like the idea of off peak charging to supply during peak... but wouldn't that just mean off-peak eventually becoming peak?

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Mr Milk said..
The lithium battery on my electric bike lasted less than a year. Maybe 100 charge cycles. I'm still in dispute with the kids on the Gold Coast who sold me the system

LOL, at least you got 100 charges. My charger blew up after ~5 charges, then soon after I started having to walk after 2.8km ride... I'm still in dispute with the guy in Melbourne.
It's over a year old, but I hardly used it (48v electric scooter).

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Adriano said..


"Clean Coal" is a load of nonsense. That's why we haven't heard anything about it other than an ultra-expensive test plant in the US that costs more than solar and wind power.

Tend to agree, I saw an early prototype in a CSIRO compound over 10 years ago and, not knowing a thing about chemistry, predicted a quick demise. But the project is still hanging in there. There's a test plant in Victoria, still going apparently. It has stored 65,000 tonnes of CO2. Wikipedia suggests it will double the cost of coal-sourced power, will that put it out of the game?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage_in_Australia

http://co2crc.com.au/dls/brochures/Otway_Brochure_2010_spread.pdf

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Ian K said..

Adriano said..

"Clean Coal" is a load of nonsense. That's why we haven't heard anything about it other than an ultra-expensive test plant in the US that costs more than solar and wind power.

Tend to agree, I saw an early prototype in a CSIRO compound over 10 years ago and, not knowing a thing about chemistry, predicted a quick demise. But the project is still hanging in there. There's a test plant in Victoria, still going apparently. It has stored 65,000 tonnes of CO2. Wikipedia suggests it will double the cost of coal-sourced power, will that put it out of the game?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage_in_Australia

http://co2crc.com.au/dls/brochures/Otway_Brochure_2010_spread.pdf

Yeah. Micro Solar PV is already cheaper electricity for new builds than retail coal and will become even cheaper as people start installing storage technologies. Coal is already out of the game strategically. It's only still there while solar and battery storage gets to critical capacity for 100% base load. Adelaide is already 100% base load solar PV on a sunny summer's day.

As I said, if all the solar power panels currently installed in Australia were hooked up to battery storage we could practically switch off coal today for everything except remote aluminium production.

We could start writing a eulogy for coal fired electricity. I'm sure someone attached to coal like p train can find just the right words.