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Comment by barney54 | Hacker News Reader

Norway already is the battery for Denmark and some of Germany. This is exactly how Denmark gets over 50% of their electricity from renewables—they always have Norway to send electricity to when wind generation is high and the reverse when generation is low.

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That's not quite a battery. There's no energy storage going on this relationship, just using trade to balance out highly variable energy production through trade.

Waterwheel, then, no?

A waterwheel is just hydro power, which is itself just an indirect form of solar power.

Technically every form of power is an indirect form of solar power.

Not nuclear! :)

All elements used in fission reactors can only come to be due to supernovae. So I guess not from our sun, but another star.

Not fission nor geothermal nor tidal power, nor fusion, if it ever arrives. But most of the other ones.

(You can say that some of them, like fission, rely on heavy metals produced sort-of in a star. But still that wasn't from our sun.)

A hydro lake is exactly like a battery - potential energy filled by a river.

Also if Germany sends excess wind/solar electricity to Norway, and the hydro lake is emptied slower because of that, then the hydro acts exactly the same as battery storage — no pumping required. However some lakes have a minimum rate of outflow: when rivers need a minimum flow for sports, ecological, or downstream dam capacity reasons. Also during dry periods when lake capacity drops, the ability to be used as a battery also drops. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28898426

When you actively pump water up into a hydro reservoir when you have too much electricity then it becomes a battery.

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