I’ll note that aggregate system cost still benefits significantly from including wind and other non-solar sources of energy; having a mix of different intermittent sources (and some firm generation such as geothermal) means less storage is needed.
I’ll note that aggregate system cost still benefits significantly from including wind and other non-solar sources of energy; having a mix of different intermittent sources (and some firm generation such as geothermal) means less storage is needed.
We really should be installing neighborhood sodium batteries everywhere. It would help to capture residential solar and smooth out the grid. No more mass power outages during storms either.
Sodium-ion is one of several technologies which might end up being how we do storage; there are a bunch of iron-chemistry flow battery technologies which might be cheaper. It’s not at all clear which will be the best choice for stationary storage at this point.
I think it doesn’t matter too much. Suboptimal energy storage is still much better than none.
How resilient are these batteries to flooding? I live on the Texas coast and have been through enough hurricanes that I know that flooding is just inevitable here. I’m not trying to play down the effectiveness of the technology, just wondering how they might fare compared to our terrible power systems in Texas?
You’d probably site them on higher ground outside of the flood plane. Add in flood walls, etc. if storm surge is a concern
There really isn’t any “outside the flood plane” around here. Or flood walls. Or infrastructure. God. Why do I live here?