By Paul Homewood
h/t AC Osborn/Patsy Lacey
AEP gives yet another plug for Highview Power’s cryogenic energy storage system. (That’s the third time at least)
Unfortunately, again he shows his ignorance of energy systems:
The article is behind the Telegraph paywall, but AEP claims the technology could help plug the intermittency gap as the UK doubles down on its new role as world leader in offshore wind power, and compares the costs of it favourable against small scale peakers.
However, what he misses is that peakers and conventional storage systems only operate for a few hours a year, to cope with spikes in demand and sudden fluctuations in supply.
They are not designed to supply power for days and weeks on end, when wind output is low. For that you need a large scale source of dispatchable capacity, such as CCGT.
If he had bothered to check Highview’s own website, he would have known this, as they talk about balancing services:
Note also, the £8m coughed up by taxpayers!
They also compare their system with pumped hydro, and indicate that typically the plant could store between 4 and 10 hours of output:
Highview are now proceeding with a new large scale plant rated at 50 MW/250 MWh, which is tiny in comparison to what is actually needed to back up wind power.
With 75 GW of wind capacity projected for 2050, daily wind output would be about 810,000 MWh, and realistically you would need standby to cover for at least two or three weeks. You would need 3240 Highviews just to cover one day’s output.
Yet AEP claims:
Highview is building four much larger “gigawatt-scale” plants in Texas over the next two years with the US energy group Tenaska Power. Mr Cavada said this cuts the cost “way below” $100 per MWh (£77). The target is to reach $50 within a decade. These sorts of figures – if achieved – would render fossil baseload power superfluous.
I suggest he goes away and does some sums.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
October 22, 2019 at 12:24PM
Iowa Climate Science Education 
Reblogged this on Climate- Science.press.
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