It's actually incredibly energy dense. It varies a bit, but roughly 1 m² per 1MW which is very good. They're also quite modular and can placed outside with proper transfer medium and lines
Is there potential for residential use under a driveway and/or garage? I imagine the point would be to have it really well insulated for efficiency sake, but if some heat leakage is inevitable it would be a nice second stoned bird.
Why doesn't Alberta do some demand shaping via time of use pricing like Ontario?
It seems like a very easy way to make our electricity cheaper and also drive some interesting storage innovations.
ATCO is testing time of use in Grande Prairie (or was planning to test it). There will need to be a pile of back office testing that will need to take place as well.
In order to do this, most customers will need new meters which won't come cheap. The distribution utilities won't need to change everyone over at the same time, but it will take a while to change over every delivery point.
Why do you think it will make electricity cheaper? I haven't seen anywhere suggesting that would be the case.
__________________ It's only game. Why you heff to be mad?
Water as a thermal energy store isn't a great option outside of home hot water heaters
I believe Drake's Landing only uses water as the medium to move the heat energy. I think the thermal battery is sand.
I was disappointed to hear they made the news with problems in their system. I've not found too much info but it seems like it's the solar thermal collectors and the plumbing system that is having problems. I believe the thermal battery is still working fine. It should be noted this is a 17 year old system. Maintenance and/or rehabbing might not be newsworthy.
This is pure speculation but I wonder if this is more of an issue with who is having to pay for the renovation. Similar to the problems condo associations face with exterior work like fencing and parking lot paving.
I would love to hear if anyone knows more about Drake's Landing and their system. I contacted them last year to have a tour but was told they weren't doing them at the time. Anyone live there?
I think low temperature thermal batteries have great potential in Alberta's climate and could lessen the load on the power grid as we move to more electrical use. Drake's uses air handlers in the home that achieve COP in the 30's. That's incredible! I think if adapted in new residential and commercial construction, the payback period could be quite attractive.
The higher temp thermal batteries are also enticing in an industrial setting.
Now, this is installed capacity in China, but it's breathtaking how much farther ahead we are in the cost curve compared to projections just 2 or 3 years ago that said we'd break the $100 mark about 10-15 years from now. Over supply and crazy scaling, plus constant iterative improvements in performance mean costs have dropped a further 605% from 2 years ago!
While China is heavily reliant on coal, it's worth noting that coal use has likely peaked last year despite new thermal plants being built. That's for three reasons primarily. One, droughts affected hydro production a lot in the last two years (though thankfully it is over) and there was needed capacity to plug the gaps. Second, while China is a centrally planned government, grid planning and generation approvals are done by each state and there's complex government/lobby/power dynamics that have traditionally favoured the coal producers. This means that there are incentives in place to build coal plants that have built in guarantees that make extremely unprofitable coal plants virtually risk free. Lastly, resiliency is a key goal and China looks to coal plants that can ramp up and down to support their massive renewables build out
Edit: forgot the image I was referring to!
Last edited by Street Pharmacist; 05-09-2024 at 08:29 PM.
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I'd imagine this will be common with anything solar over 20-30 years.
Any energy system needs to be up kept.
I'm really glad we're using performance issues of 2000s technology to smear 2020s technology.
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Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist
There's no catch! 98% efficiency to turn electricity into heat, then you just use that heat when you need it. The "catch" is it's still a newer tech that most industry isn't used to. They've already got gas lines and are using gas so there needs to be a leap of faith to buy one of these systems. They'd need to have someone watching electricity prices and arbitraging by changing the power flows based on electricity price.
One of the reasons why building out gas infrastructure around the world may not be a wise decision.
Vermont is going to make fossil fuel companies pay for climate change damage
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The new law will allow Vermont to charge companies for their share of emissions going back nearly three decades, then use that money to fund projects and infrastructure that helps Vermont adapt to climate change and better withstand extreme weather events in the future.
I don't really see how this makes much sense, and seems to be way to avoid personal responsibility and blame everyone else. It would be interesting to see what happens if all fossil fuel producers collectively abandoned the state. Just so people really understand you can't blame the drug dealer for your addiction. And to see just how addicted you are with no access to energy.
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Hopefully the law is broad enough that once they do their calculation, they can bill the proportion related to burning/consuming the oil and gas to the state of Vermont, to cover the fair share of the residents'.
I don't really see how this makes much sense, and seems to be way to avoid personal responsibility and blame everyone else. It would be interesting to see what happens if all fossil fuel producers collectively abandoned the state. Just so people really understand you can't blame the drug dealer for your addiction. And to see just how addicted you are with no access to energy.
It's one thing to sue O&G companies for funding lobbying and advertising efforts to muddy the waters on climate change. It's another thing to just sue a company that sells something we can't live without.
So the state itself hasn't been self reliant at all, and has the excess emissions from oil producers that need to be transferred to capture the full lifecycle emissions. I think they owe some low lying islands some cash.
The rising potential of solar power’s affordable and abundant energy
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At the peak of the midday sun in countries across the globe last week, solar power generated one-fifth of the world’s electricity.
The estimate, from Ember, a London-based energy think tank, is meant to highlight the surge of solar power in recent years – and its massive potential in the years ahead. For the full month of June, Ember estimates solar will produce 8.2 per cent of the world’s electrical power. That’s up sharply from 6.7 per cent in June, 2023, startling growth that is forecast to continue shooting higher.
Last year, for the first time, global investments in solar eclipsed oil, and this year the money going into clean energy is double that of fossil fuels. The cover of The Economist’s latest issue declares the “dawn of the solar age.” Ember research indicates that no source of electricity has ever surged to widespread adoption as fast as solar. The technology, Ember says, will “transform the power sector.”
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Change can happen rapidly, and solar can flourish in places with not that much sunshine and little available land. Look at the Netherlands, which until a decade ago was a major producer of methane gas and now has more per capita solar than any country other than Australia. Solar panels everywhere is the strategy, from the roofs of several million homes to churches and old landfills. Solar power produced 17 per cent of Dutch power in 2023, up from 1 per cent in 2015.