Plunging Battery Prices Expected To Spur Renewable Energy Adoption 130
Lucas123 writes: Lithium-ion (Li-on) and flow battery prices are expected to drop by as much as 60% by 2020, making them far more affordable for storing power from distributed renewable energy systems, such as wind and solar, according to a recent report by Australia's Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). The 130-page report (PDF) shows that Li-on batteries will drop from $550 per kilowatt hour (kWh) in 2014 to $200 per kWh by 2020; and flow battery prices will drop from $680 per kWh to $350 per kWh during the same time. Flow batteries and Li-ion batteries work well with intermittent energy sources such as solar panels and wind turbines because of their ability to be idle for long periods without losing a charge. Both battery technologies offer unique advantages in that they can easily be scaled to suit many applications and have high cycle efficiency, the ARENA report noted. Li-ion batteries more easily suit consumer market. Flow batteries, which are less adaptable for consumer use because they're typically too large, scale more easily because all that's needed to grow storage capacity is more electrolyte liquid; the hardware remains the same.
Yay for price drop (Score:5, Insightful)
More importantly, will the cost drop? There is so much meddling in the market nowadays that you may pay less for things that are costing more to make, and vice versa.
Re: Yay for price drop (Score:5, Interesting)
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one would expect no difference in the lithium market, abundant suppl
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Crude is the raw material. You still ned to manufacture and distribute the gasoline. As a guess, the refinery capacity hasn't increased in your area of the world. Nor is it likely to, as the trend is toward hybrids and all-electrics. Projected future consumption is not likely to support a large refinery project for the next 30-50 years.
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That's why Mr. Musk's "Gigafactory" is such a big deal; if quality batteries can be produced on a massive scale and for less money per-unit, suddenly it makes using batteries for general-purpose applications more affordable. You might see racks upon racks of lead-acid batteries providing in
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You might see racks upon racks of lead-acid batteries providing infrastructure support for telco rooms be replaced with smaller, longer-lived Lithium-Ion batteries,
In 2012, [batterypoweronline.com] Li-Ion was 'niche' for battery backup. By late 2013 [energymanagertoday.com] it was making inroads into data centers.
I'd almost rate it like HD vs SSD - while performance metrics are different, LiIon is a superior battery held back only by cost. Drop the price of it by 60% and suddenly it's cheaper to ship(lighter per Wh), lasts longer(double or more of lead-acid), more efficient(~95% efficient vs 80%, and lower standby loss as well; takes deep-discharges better), etc...
BTW, the batteries in the telco office would likely
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Lithium battery technology needs much more sophisticated charge/discharge/monitoring controllers than lead-acid. There's a bit of way to go before domestic PV/battery controllers are up to the task.
My current set of lead-acid batteries will be at end-of-life in about 5 years, so it might be feasible to replace them with lithium at that time.
Batter prices. (Score:2)
Lithium battery technology needs much more sophisticated charge/discharge/monitoring controllers than lead-acid. There's a bit of way to go before domestic PV/battery controllers are up to the task.
From my review of the situation, it's more that they're different. Yes, you can get away with a dumber charger on lead-acid, but when you're doing domestic PV with a large battery array, you want a sophisticated charger anyways.
Same deal with LiIon, really. the minimum charger is a bit more complicated, but again, as the size of the battery increases so doesn't the sophistication of the charger to handle it. Tesla chargers, for example, are really fancy, but we're talking about a HUGE array here, capable
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I'll have to chase up the supplier and see what they've been developing - www.plasmatronics.com.au - the website is geocities-bad but the products are good, and the support is great, e.g. my older, secondary controller which was slaved to the main controller developed a fault and kept resetting. It was way out of warranty but they fixed it free anyway.
The PL series from them are reasonably smart as far as lead-acid technology goes - PWM, adjustable boost/absorb/float cycle timing, presets for flooded-cell o
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Well, you have things like this available: http://genasun.com/all-product... [genasun.com]
As for the value of your used equipment, it might be more complicated - if 'everybody' is putting in lithium-ion in 5 years, it might turn your controller into the equivalent of a VCR when DVDs reign supreme.
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More importantly, will the cost drop? There is so much meddling in the market nowadays that you may pay less for things that are costing more to make, and vice versa.
The Koch brothers will buy up the battery manufacturers and drive up prices.
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Which will provide a big opening for Musk and any other such project seeking funding.
It's already happened; we're at $250/kWh now. (Score:5, Informative)
Check this: http://www.greencarreports.com... [greencarreports.com]
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I was looking at lipo's last night. Still over 4x the cost of lead acid. I got my batteries @ ~$100/kwh. That's roughly the cost at a few places I've looked: walmart, costco, golf cart and auto repair shops. And that's with lifespan et al factored in.
I don't think what you said is true. Either you have not thought out what you posted and have not done the correct calculations, or you are just making it up. Here is an actual price comparison [powertechsystems.eu] between lead acid batteries and Li-ion batteries. To summarize, lead acid batteries cost 0.76€ / kWh / cycle, while Li-ion batteries cost 0.42€ / kWh / cycle. That is, lead acid is 81% more expensive per kWh/cycle than Li-ion. In addition, lead acid batteries are bulky, stinky, heavy, and don't last ver
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$2400 [lithiumion-batteries.com]
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"People with off-grid systems are getting much better results than that."
No they aren't. I sold them for a living. We wouldn't do anything beyond 50% DoD, and customers that did burned out their batteries.
At any size around 5000Wh or larger the lipos started pulling ahead in lifetime cost. Once you factor in maintenance-free operation and the fact that they're half the size and weight, there's no contest. And that's when they cost 80/Wh.
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Deep cycle batteries are designed to be discharged down as much as 80% time after time, and have much thicker plates. The major difference between a true deep cycle battery and others is that the plates are SOLID Lead plates - not sponge. This gives less surface area, thus less "instant" power like starting batteries need. Although these can be cycled down to 20% charge, the best lifespan vs cost method is to keep the average cycle at about 50% discharge. Unfortunately, it is often impossible to tell what you are really buying in some of the discount stores or places that specialize in automotive batteries. The golf car battery is quite popular for small systems and RV's.
http://www.solar-electric.com/... [solar-electric.com]
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Unfortunately, it is often impossible to tell what you are really buying in some of the discount stores or places that specialize in automotive batteries
The best way to determine if you are getting a "true" deep-cycle battery is to compare the weight. Batteries with solid lead plates will weigh significantly more than the fake deep cycles.
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The only lead acids you're getting at that price are wet cell car batteries that are only good for starting a car. SLAs and gel cells suitable for deep cycle applications cost more than twice as much as you say.
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Except that lead batteries need frequent replacements, are too heavy and need constant refill service. They are crap and more expensive when you account for replacements.
Or you can get salvaged Nissan Leaf battery for $2000-$3000 21kWh
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I stand corrected; you found an off-brand wet cell deep cycle battery instead of a wet cell car battery.
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Go shop alibaba. You can get them even cheaper.
Flow Batteries (Score:5, Informative)
Had to look this one up! From the wikipedia:
A flow battery, or redox flow battery (after reduction–oxidation), is a type of rechargeable battery where rechargeability is provided by two chemical components dissolved in liquids contained within the system and separated by a membrane.[1] Ion exchange (providing flow of electric current) occurs through the membrane while both liquids circulate in their own respective space.
... While it has technical advantages such as potentially separable liquid tanks and near unlimited longevity over most conventional rechargeables, current implementations are comparatively less powerful and require more sophisticated electronics.
On the negative side, flow batteries are rather complicated in comparison with standard batteries as they may require pumps, sensors, control units and secondary containment vessels. The energy densities vary considerably but are, in general, rather low compared to portable batteries, such as the Li-ion.
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On the negative side, flow batteries are rather complicated in comparison with standard batteries as they may require pumps, sensors, control units and secondary containment vessels.
Rube Goldberg reaches from the grave. For some reason people think complex means advanced.
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Rube Goldberg reaches from the grave. For some reason people think complex means advanced
Rube was about unnecessary complexity. A lot of our refining of technology is indeed about reducing complexity, leading to more reliable products. For example, a GenIII nuclear plant is supposed to have 50% fewer valves than a GenII. What does getting rid of half your valves and something like 30% of your piping do? It means that there's a lot less stuff to break, and you can build the remaining stuff sturdier with the freed up space.
To get back to the flow batteries - a steam power plant is hella compl
Still a bad value (Score:3, Interesting)
Lead acid 6 v golf cart battery with over 100 Ah of usable capacity, or 0.6 kWh of storage (ie: 200+ Ah actual capacity, you never drain a lead acid battery flat) : $90. Deep cycle (because it's for powering golf carts) means you actually CAN drain 50% or more of it without damaging the battery at all.
That's $150 per kWh, and you can hop on over to Sam's Club and buy one or more of them tonight.
If you have the space to deal with them, which if you're using them for home you likely do, lead acid battery tech is going to beat out lithium ion for a long time yet (past 2020 apparently!)
Re:Still a bad value (Score:5, Interesting)
Lead is cheap but you get what you pay for.
First, lead-acid has a shelf life even if you do not discharge the battery - the lead plates sulfate over time, reducing capacity. It is only partially reversible by occasional special charge/discharge cycles. This shelf life is something like 3-5 years, depending on how much capacity you are willing to lose.
Second, lead-acid self-discharges. This means, unless you use the battery very close in time to when you charge it, you've wasted some of the energy you put into it. Trickle-charging only makes this worse, since you will always be dropping energy into the battery without getting most of it out.
Third, lead-acid discharge voltages are strongly impacted by the current at which you discharge them - look up the Peukert exponent [wikipedia.org] for the golf cart batteries you were quoting - it will be over 1.2, and probably higher, meaning that high current discharge will drain the battery much faster than expected.
Finally, even deep cycle lead-acid batteries are slowly degraded even by the 50% discharge you quote. It only takes a few hundred cycles for capacity to be diminished by double-digit percentages. This is caused by plate erosion.
Existing lithium cells don't have a known shelf-life (they probably have one, but we don't know what it is) - it could be 10 years or more. They have expected 80% discharge cycle counts of *thousands* rather than hundreds. And their Peukert exponent is very close to 1.00 since they don't have the same variable internal resistance characteristics of lead-acid.
I have first-hand experience of this - I have used all three of deep-cycle flooded, deep-cycle sealed (AGM), and now Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) cells in my home-built [volt914.com] electric vehicle conversions [electrojeep.com]. My lead-acid shelf lives were right along with that 3-5 year expectations. The LiFePO4 cells are going on 2 years now with no measurable decrease in capacity.
hydrogen lead acid (Score:1)
There are lead acid batteries, which last a few thousand charge cycles, but they produce hydrogen gas, which is bad for a consumer product. Lithium batteries have the advantage of being light, and somewhat safe. That is an advantage for electronic devices, and electric cars. For big, stationary electricity storage, not so much.
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Existing lithium cells don't have a known shelf-life
My laptop would beg to differ.
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That's not because of shelf life. That's because of overcharge and/or over-discharge - laptop vendors tend to create charge/discharge profiles that abuse the cells in the interest of quoting more hours of operation per charge. If you were to detach your laptop's battery from all electronics (including a battery monitor / BMS) you would find that it retains its charge for months or even years.
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Lithium ions still have a shelf life even with optimal use.
There's essentially a form of corrosion going on inside the lithium ion pack, and after 5-10 years (depending on how it's stored and the pack's chemistry) it loses about 25% capacity, and the loss of capacity gets much faster after that.
It helps to keep the pack at lower charge, and not permit it getting too hot, and not charging or discharging it too rapidly, but it still happens.
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I've seen high-quality (Motorola batteries for 2-way radios) lithium rechargeable batteries lose 40% of their capacity in 3 years, sitting in their factory-sealed packaging in a desk drawer.
And I'm not talking about self-discharge, but permanent capacity loss. But since you mention self-discharge...
I've seen barely-used, only-a-few-weeks-old Porter Cable power tool batteries that would discharge overnight in the back of a truck in a climate-controlled garage, connected to nothing.
But since these things are
Spontaneous combustion (Score:2, Interesting)
.
The money I save via the solar panels, I'll probably lose due to the higher fire insurance premiums.
Why lithium batteries keep catching fire [economist.com]
...Lithium batteries are widely used because of their high energy density: in other words, their ability to store a lot of energy in a lightweight, compact form. But they have a tendency to cause expensive machinery to go up in smoke....
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I have the same question, and others. How sustainable, really, are these types of batteries? Recyclability?
just curious, what is your plan of action when you get the information you are looking for?
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you are asking the wrong questions, you should be asking "how much more sustainable is this than what we have now"
your current vehicle is an environmental disaster, but you don't seem to be in much of a hurry to do anything about it
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I've read through about the last 100 of your comments, and I've seen a trend. I'm not here to get in arguments just to get in an argument, so please don't, I'm not interested, OK? Thanks.
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I have the same question, and others. How sustainable, really, are these types of batteries? Recyclability? Cost effectiveness over the long term, including recycling/rebuilding them? I'm talking about 'cradle-to-grave' costs, both in monetary units and in costs to the environment. For the time being things like solar and wind power are probably our best bet to reduce dependence on fossil fuel use, and the ability to store power generated is critical to these technologies' usefulness being maximized, but if we're just 'robbing Peter to pay Paul' then it's pointless. Really, the sooner we have a permanent, large-scale solution (like practical fusion power) the better, but we have to make do as best we can in the meantime.
That is precisely the important question, and it implies total systemic cost to society. Its easy to skip over that, but it sure would be nice to be able to lay all technologies side by side with a reasonable assessment of total systemic cost. Unfortunately, it is very hard to do.
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I just read this, which could be total horseshit, but it looks reasonable:
http://www.waste-management-wo... [waste-mana...-world.com]
Lithium only accounts for 3% of the cost of a battery. Recycled lithium is 5 times more expensive than 'new' lithium.
I think they said that recycling's biggest economic benefit is stabilizing the price fluctuation in lithium if demand for 'new' lithium exceeds resource output. I don't know if there's a point at which you don't need much new lithium for batteries because basically you will have built
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Sustainability: 'Very'
Recyclability: Effectively Total. Only problem right now is that there isn't enough of them to justify the recycling centers that are present for lead-acid types. That's quickly changing.
Long term cost effectiveness: Improving all the time as we improve manufacturing.
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> But they have a tendency to cause expensive machinery to go up in smoke
That's li*co* batteries, not the li*po* batteries we're talking about here. Lipo batteries are just as safe as lead acid, at the cost of decreased energy density compared to lico.
Re:Spontaneous combustion (Score:5, Informative)
Uh... no.
"Lipo" (lithium-polymer) batteries are subject to thermal runaway (exploding into flame) if abused. Plus they can be more vulnerable for reasons including the typically soft packaging (OTOH, cell phones are not often bursting into flames in people's pockets). Maybe you were thinking of lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) batteries, which have lower voltage and lower specific energy density, but are more robust?
In any case, I thought *we* were discussing all sorts of batteries here, including a variety of lithium chemistries.
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Stupid article, complete FUD, batteries don't make a showing in the top ten causes of fires. Do battery fires make the news?, sure - and so do people getting attacked by sharks, that doesn't mean either are common events or something to worry about.
The TWO Tesla cars that caught fire were in extreme vehicle accidents. Are you expecting your house to suddenly get skewered by massive shards of metal?
Having a quality home battery storage system will not push up your fire insurance premiums, in fact it'd likely
More batteries = more polution (Score:1)
Is it just me or are we creating more hazardous material and keeping it in our homes as we push this whole "clean energy" initiative? We're talking about creating millions of tons of batteries that contain nasty chemicals and hazardous materials and we will keep them in our homes.
I'll stay on the grid, thanks.
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Our existing sources of power and heat aren't exactly risk free.
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I hope you never drive anywhere either, because gasoline has a significantly higher risk profile per mile than lithium ion batteries.
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In terms of hazardous materials, Lithium batteries are pretty benein. They do not contain heavy metals nor are they considered particularly toxic. If they were a fire hazard then BEVs should be catching fire left and right.
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It's hard to find a lithium ion battery that doesn't contain Li, Fe or Mn, all of which are heavy metals [rarediseases.org] for the purposes of this discussion. They are not as bad as lead, though.
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Sorry, I meant Ni, not Li.
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The batteries in my car contain lithium, aluminum and cobalt, no nickel. Also, lithium batteries are fully recyclable and there are already programs in place to recycle those batteries. Even the NiMH batteries used in some hybrids are fully recyclable and the batteries in my Prius had a refund for returning dead batteries. At least in terms of manufacturing the lithium batteries, Tesla is planning to fully power their manufacturing with solar power. Lithium batteries also only contain about 3% lithium.
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The only aluminum containing batteries used in cars that I know of use Panasonic's NCA chemistry. The N stands for nickel. Cobalt is another heavy metal I forgot to mention.
Yes, recycling is much more about the nickel or cobalt than the lithium.
Tesla's solar power promise is more of a gimmick than anything else, but at least it does no harm.
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Cobalt [wikipedia.org] is not a heavy metal and is in fact essential for life and is a constituent of vitamin B12 and not all that toxic. While nickel can be toxic in some cases it is also plays an important role in plant and microorganism biology. Nickel also is not a heavy metal. Lithium also is also likely an essential trace element for mammals although they have not yet identified any physiological role. Aluminum also is not really toxic. If nickel were all that toxic then nobody would be using stainless steel cookware
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Cobal is a heavy metal. From my link in my first reply:
I was quite surprised a few years ago when I read that iron was a heavy metal, especially considering how important it is for red blood cells, but I looked it up and it was.
Aluminum is not a heavy metal, and I
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I recommend not eating the batteries, even if your diet is a little short on Iron.
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Is it just me or are we creating more hazardous material and keeping it in our homes
in many places they actually pump explosive gases into your house with pipelines
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There is no shortage of lithium and the batteries can be fully recycled at the end of life.
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How are batteries of environmentally friendly and sustainable?
Batteries are an enabling technology that can store intermittently available renewable energy for convenient use. Think wind powered cars and solar street lights, both can be made practical through the use of battery storage.
Bet u another battery tech will beat both in price (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention fusion will finally be feasible which will spin this whole discussion.
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battery tech is going to take off
Why? Batteries have been researched for hundreds of years and is limited to mixing chemicals with known electric potentials. Lipo's are 25 years old now and were the last of major significance.
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Why? Batteries have been researched for hundreds of years and is limited to mixing chemicals with known electric potentials.
The difference is in the amount of research that is going on. Between the laptop industry, the mobile phone industry, and the electric car industry, the amount of money and man-hours being invested into commercial battery technology over the last 5 years dwarfs the previous efforts. Advances in battery technology [google.com] are being discovered every week.
If you want safety and long term reliability (Score:1)
You can't go wrong with nickel-iron. You will need to add a large extension to the house though.
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ROBOTS!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
But if I had a reasonably priced source of reasonably power dense batteries then my robots would improve proportionally. For this doesn't just increase the power available to my existing designs but it also reduces the overall costs of a robot. For instance the more efficient the motor or cost computer module, generally the higher the cost. But it would be great if I could slap in any old small motherboard, and use run of the mill DC motors instead of ultra cool brushless.
Then whole other motor systems become possible. Linear motors, pneumatic systems, hydraulic systems, etc.
So a revolution in batteries would precipitate a revolution in robots; real robots doing real jobs in the real world.
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real robots doing real jobs in the real world.
apparently the software will just write and debug itself
or maybe space aliens will write the code for us
no way humans are gonna do it
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or maybe space aliens will write the code for us -- no way humans are gonna do it
Baxter [youtube.com] says hi.
kWh? (Score:2)
Why are articles citing battery sizes in kWh these days? How are they even coming up with that, exactly, and how do I determine the Ah equivalent, which is what batteries are actually sized in? It's hard for me to do the math on these numbers and compare to AGMs, FLAs, etc.
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"how do I determine the Ah equivalent, which is what batteries are actually sized in"
That's how lead-acid and other older technologies are actually sized in. Several reasons why. One is they have a slow decline in voltage during discharge, so over the entire cycle the voltage may vary perhaps 35%. Combined with that is the voltage sag. So for these batteries you have a wide span of curves.
In contrast, lipos are *much* flatter. They hold their voltage until they're 90% discharged (or more) and then suddenly
Re:kWh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Properly calculated kWh has the voltage drop baked into the calculation, amp hours don't (and what would it even mean?). More simply though, kWh is a measure of energy stored, amp hours isn't without doing that time volts calculation. So kWh is a lot easier to compare different technologies with. We still regularly compare an online for like comparisons like phone batteries, where the voltage curves are similar.
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Why are articles citing battery sizes in kWh these days?
Probably because it's a more useful metric, as it tells you the total *energy* in the battery without extra steps. To determine the Ah equivalent, you'd need to multiple by 1k, then divide by the battery's voltage. After all, to convert Ah into Wh, you multiply by the battery's voltage.
quote the battery's size in kWh and you don't need to know the voltage(for the generic purposes of an article). Volts for extremely large battery packs are somewhat optional, after all, it all depends on how you wire them.
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Not even close... (Score:1)
Where do they get these bullshit numbers from? Even Bob Lutz (considered the "father" of the Chevy Volt) pegged battery costs at $350 kwh...THREE YEARS AGO. Not only may the numbers be from earlier in the program, they're for batteries using an expensive prismatic design. I'd be very surprised if Tesla isn't getting their batteries for under $200 kwh today.
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Turns out that the battery price is dropping at about 8% per annum right now, and also the price paid for a battery depends on battery quantity- Nissan and Tesla pay less for their batteries than other manufacturers because they buy so many of them.
Electric Motorcycles (Score:2)
I'm eagerly anticipating affordable electric motorcycles.
I think Brammo and Zeros are rated at ~ 200-500 MPG equivalent?
That's way better mileage than even a fully loaded (everybody standing) bus gets in peak hours.
The problem with the electric motorcycles today is the price tag. The prices have dropped recently (from, say, $19,000 to $14,000, with ~$12,000 for very low end bikes that can't go very far,) but they need to go down further and increase in range.
Oil at 30USD a barrel, why renewables? (Score:1)
With the price of oil this low, and likely to stay that way for many years, what economic motivation will people have to go with renewable energy now?
It made a lot of sense with oil at 100, 80, 90 dollars a barrel and the price at the pump at ridiculous levels. But when the price of gas and electricity drops in response to oil prices, what will happen to investments in renewables. I'm thinking that they suddenly will not seem as attractive anymore from a purely economic standpoint.
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If Iran ramps up production, and there is even MORE supply, how will that help the price of Oil to rise?
If the Chinese economy dwindles and there is even less DEMAND, how will that help the price of oil to rise?
Iran pumping more = even more Supply.
China economy faltering = even less Demand.
So why would the price of oil increase?
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Dream on, commodity bubble is over and commodity cycles last decades. OPEC is irrelevant now, they have minority of the market and can't even control each others output anymore. You will not see stable $100 oil price for next decade.
Won't be necessary (Score:3)
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You will still need batteries in your electric car even in the energy is free at the plug.
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Erm... (Score:4, Insightful)
The going rate for residential electricity in the U.S. is about $0.11/kWh. So basically if these batteries charge/discharge once per day (as the case would be for solar), and you want the batteries to only add (say) 20% to the price of the generated electricity in order for it to remain cost-competitive (note: wind is nearly cost-competitive, solar is still about 2x-3x more expensive), then it currently takes $550 per kWh / ($0.11 per kWh * 20% * 365 cycles/yr) = 68.5 years for these batteries to pay for themselves, but by 2020 it will take 27.4 years. Yay progress?
Unless the levelized price for renewable generation drops substantially below that of coal, I don't see how this will "spur renewable energy adoption" except for regions where electricity prices are substantially higher (e.g. Hawaii, $0.30/kWh)
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Unless the levelized price for renewable generation drops substantially below that of coal, I don't see how this will "spur renewable energy adoption" except for regions where electricity prices are substantially higher (e.g. Hawaii, $0.30/kWh)
Excellent point. Now... where can I get a 100 mile long extension cord for my electric car?
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Coal is currently profitable because of heavy cost externalization.
Namely pollution (The health costs and environmental damage come out of the public's pocket), and more recently the exploitative abuse/pension stealing of coal mine workers.
Pay the real cost of coal and it's not so cheap.
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I wish that there was a standard method for "accounting" these externalities. Do companies that run coal mines or plants forecast or hedge against the possibility of future lawsuits related to pollution? If so, who determines that hedge amount? Are they buying insurance against these eventualities? If so, what do the actuarial tables say for such things. If we could at least quantify these externalities, we could start looking at the real cost of these things.
Of course, that is not to say that these compani
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Tesla PowerPack is being sold at $250/kWh. It is most cost effective at shifting energy from the lowest cost time periods to the highest cost time periods (peak shaving) where the demand charges can be extreme. At the consumer pricing of near $350/kWh now, the costs for regions like Hawaii make sense already. There are also those willing to pay slightly more either in areas that are difficult to be on-grid or where the grid is unreliable.
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The Tesla PowerPack is a 100kWh battery.
100kWh * $250 = $25,000.
I doubt it can pay for itself before it dies of old age in a consumer application. (Which is no surprise, since it's not being marketed toward consumers.)
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You already can get them at around $250/kWh. By 2020 it will be $100/kWh. The study uses some hopelessly outdated data.