Yup, that's in the book I linked.
A lot less storage is needed than most people think. We only need about 3 hours worth of storage. That's a lot, but it's feasible.
A lot less storage is needed than most people think. We only need about 3 hours worth of storage. That's a lot, but it's feasible.
This doesn't align with the analysis that I've seen. For example in this post (https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/the-disastrous-economics...) the analysis shows that California would have to spend about $5 trillion on battery storage to have a solar+wind+battery grid.
If the book you reference was accurate we would be seeing headlines about power companies bragging about these new grid arrangements but instead I just see headlines about how India an China are moving ahead with enormous amounts of coal power plants, rapidly increasing energy costs where intermittent power generation is a significant fraction of power capacity (i.e. Germany), and power outages when base load generating capacity isn't sufficient to keep the lights on when the sun sets and the wind dies.
For instance:
Yeah if their assumptions include a month or more then you can end up with an astronomically big sum. Also you don't need batteries for all your energy storage and they use todays battery prices to come up with that number.
> Yet even in systems which meet >90% of demand, hundreds of hours of unmet demand may occur annually.
and
> satisfy countries’ electricity demand in 72–91% of hours (83–94% by adding 12 h of storage).
So not 3 hours and still significant number of days without power.
Capital cost of a simple cycle combustion turbine power plant: $500/kW Capital cost of a nuclear power plant: $10,000/kW
So, one can have this backup sitting there ready to go for just 5% of the cost of an all nuclear grid. You do need the fuel, but if it's only used a few hundred hours per year the fuel cost will be minor.