Author Topic: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th  (Read 24139 times)

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Offline tom66

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #175 on: April 16, 2023, 10:52:51 am »
Have you thought about loads that run continuously for long hours like lights, computers, TVs, refridgerators? Those are significant electricity users that can't really be timed. In addition not all heavy loads like washing machines and dish washers can't be run at night due to the noise.

Maybe washing machines can't run at night for some machines (though my Bosch direct-drive machine is deadly silent even fully loaded at 1400rpm, it came with the house and I thought it wasn't working right at high speed until I looked carefully at the clothes moving).  But dishwashers?  They are not really that loud.  Maybe 45-50dB(A).  If you sleep in your kitchen you might complain, but you're not going to notice them otherwise.  The dryer is the loudest of all my appliances, mostly because the compressor mountings on my one need a bit of love.

Really, you are creating artificial boundaries to justify your position:  I lived in both a 1 bed flat and now a 4 bed house, and I would have no issue running either the washer or dishwasher overnight (because I frequently did even in the flat, I was on a deemed dual rate tariff, which basically meant I had no choice but to have cheaper off peak and slightly more expensive on peak, just how the building worked.)  With the bedroom door closed, you couldn't hear either running.

As for other loads, like computers, entertainment etc.  Of course they need to be powered all the time, but that is not the point.  Electricity would always be there. The idea is to shift as much as we can, not everything, into the times when energy is most available.  Thereby limiting the amount we need to convert into inefficient stores of energy, like hydrogen.  The luckier households might decide to invest in home battery storage to further arbitrate on this pricing disparity, though market laws would tell us in the long term as everyone does this, no one would win.  But early adopters, or those who combine with solar, may benefit.
 

Offline Siwastaja

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #176 on: April 16, 2023, 11:01:52 am »
Have you thought about loads that run continuously for hours like lights, computers, TVs, refridgerators? Those are significant electricity users that can't really be timed.

Yeah, you can think about them until cows come home. If you want to penny pitch and make your life miserable, you can of course choose to watch TV only during cheap hours, and sit in darkness, and save a few EUR a year.

Look, I understand that you don't have electric heating (direct or heat pump), electric hot water heating, or an EV. You heat both your house and hot water with natural gas.  You have not much to automate, and very little to gain. You could time the washing machine and dishwasher like tom66 does, but if you don't like the noise at night, then you can't do that either. Your case cannot be optimized.

Yet, for example here we have hundreds of thousands of households who spend 5MWh/year in such non-timeable random loads and 20MWh/year in direct electric heating, latter of which can be trivially automated. Electric water heaters (storage tank type) are also extremely common here and other Nordic countries. Typical size here is 240 to 300 liters with 3kW resistor set.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2023, 11:04:54 am by Siwastaja »
 
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Offline nctnico

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #177 on: April 16, 2023, 11:04:31 am »
Have you thought about loads that run continuously for long hours like lights, computers, TVs, refridgerators? Those are significant electricity users that can't really be timed. In addition not all heavy loads like washing machines and dish washers can't be run at night due to the noise.

Maybe washing machines can't run at night for some machines (though my Bosch direct-drive machine is deadly silent even fully loaded at 1400rpm, it came with the house and I thought it wasn't working right at high speed until I looked carefully at the clothes moving).  But dishwashers?  They are not really that loud.  Maybe 45-50dB(A).  If you sleep in your kitchen you might complain, but you're not going to notice them otherwise.  The dryer is the loudest of all my appliances, mostly because the compressor mountings on my one need a bit of love.

Really, you are creating artificial boundaries to justify your position.
It is not my position, it is what -I'm quite sure about- most people will want. I only outline how electricity is used in general. You still didn't answer the question to provide research about what people actually want from a utility company. What I see in the NL is that most people have long term fixed price contracts or contracts with prices that change twice a year. Companies that offer spot prices are rare and have very few customers. IOW: any proposed solution that is based on spot pricing will have an extremely large uphill battle to gain acceptance & market penetration. At least in the NL...
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline nctnico

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #178 on: April 16, 2023, 11:09:37 am »
Have you thought about loads that run continuously for hours like lights, computers, TVs, refridgerators? Those are significant electricity users that can't really be timed.
Look, I understand that you don't have electric heating (direct or heat pump), electric hot water heating, or an EV. You heat both your house and hot water with natural gas.  You have not much to automate, and very little to gain. You could time the washing machine and dishwasher like tom66 does, but if you don't like the noise at night, then you can't do that either. Your case cannot be optimized.
Actually my case can be optimised by adding storage. Either locally or at the grid level.

There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #179 on: April 16, 2023, 11:09:49 am »
Did you do any research whether people are willing to have energy contracts based on spot prices and requiring people to live along how the wind blows and the sun shines?
Which part about the automated control you failed to understand?  :palm:

It makes no sense to time your coffee making or dishwashing for cheap prices, that's real penny pitching. But you can automate the large loads which are not sensitive to exact timing. If you have those, not everyone do of course. Probably the only reason you don't grok this is because you don't, but it's blatantly obvious to those who do.
Have you thought about loads that run continuously for hours like lights, computers, TVs, refridgerators? Those are significant electricity users that can't really be timed. In addition not all heavy loads like washing machines and dish washers can't be run at night due to the noise. And then there are simple things like cooking dinner on an electric stove / using a microwave around dinner time. If you make a carefull analysis, you'll see that a significant amount of electricity use can't be timed at all.
Baloney, straight up nonsense. The majority energy use in most developed nations are transport, and HVAC:
https://www.withouthotair.com/c18/page_103.shtml
 

Offline Siwastaja

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #180 on: April 16, 2023, 11:15:24 am »
What I see in the NL is that most people have long term fixed price contracts or contracts with prices that change twice a year. Companies that offer spot prices are rare and have very few customers. IOW: any proposed solution that is based on spot pricing will have an extremely large uphill battle to gain acceptance & market penetration.

Here, it's been a roller coaster journey:

2020 - early 2021: Fixed contracts at 0.05EUR/kWh for 2 years. Many swallowed the "early adopter" pill and signed into spot contracts nevertheless.

December 2021: historically high spot prices up to 1EUR/kWh, panic among those who did not understand what average cost means. Return back to fixed contracts, this time 0.10EUR/kWh for 2 years

Spring 2022: Putin happens, panic, fixed price contracts increasing steadily, reach 0.45EUR/kWh for 2 years(!!!) during the summer. Idiots sign up.

Winter 2022-2023: Nothing happened, spot prices not nearly as bad as people thought, not any worse than 2021. Average spot price around 0.10EUR/kWh.

Spring 2023: People who took fixed contracts in panic are angry as hell. There is a massive push to spot contracts because of the feeling of getting conned by power companies into paying more. People start understanding that the spot price is the true value of what they buy, and it only gets worse with fixed contracts.

But let's see how it goes. Obviously now it's again possible to get a relatively good fixed contract (at 0.08EUR/kWh). But, the difference is here: earlier people consider spot pricing as some sort of risky, ugly con. This turned around: people now understand the trap in fixed contracts, and the safety in the spot contracts.
 
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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #181 on: April 16, 2023, 11:16:17 am »
Have you thought about loads that run continuously for long hours like lights, computers, TVs, refridgerators? Those are significant electricity users that can't really be timed. In addition not all heavy loads like washing machines and dish washers can't be run at night due to the noise.
Maybe washing machines can't run at night for some machines (though my Bosch direct-drive machine is deadly silent even fully loaded at 1400rpm, it came with the house and I thought it wasn't working right at high speed until I looked carefully at the clothes moving).  But dishwashers?  They are not really that loud.  Maybe 45-50dB(A).  If you sleep in your kitchen you might complain, but you're not going to notice them otherwise.  The dryer is the loudest of all my appliances, mostly because the compressor mountings on my one need a bit of love.

Really, you are creating artificial boundaries to justify your position.
It is not my position, it is what -I'm quite sure about- most people will want. I only outline how electricity is used in general. You still didn't answer the question to provide research about what people actually want from a utility company. What I see in the NL is that most people have long term fixed price contracts or contracts with prices that change twice a year. Companies that offer spot prices are rare and have very few customers. IOW: any proposed solution that is based on spot pricing will have an extremely large uphill battle to gain acceptance & market penetration. At least in the NL...
And there is nothing stopping retailers from continuing fixed contracts despite variable wholesale pricing. It is your ridiculous argument that fixed price consumer contracts requires seasonal storage, and the lack of suitable storage is then a reason to not install variable renewable generation that is the problem. Fixed price just means the retailer is taking a bet on when you will actually use the energy, some consumers will profit from that choice and some will not.
 
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Offline Siwastaja

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #182 on: April 16, 2023, 11:17:52 am »
Actually my case can be optimised by adding storage. Either locally or at the grid level.

This is true - what I meant, your case cannot be optimized with my proposed solution. We all know that.

You should run a calculation though how much it costs to store the energy for your TV using hydrogen, while there are other households that have loads 10 times larger than that, and which can be optimized even without hydrogen/li-ion/P2X/etc. storage.

Look, making the production and consumption match helps everyone, even if your household is not part of the solution directly.
 
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Offline tom66

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #183 on: April 16, 2023, 11:20:59 am »
It is not my position, it is what -I'm quite sure about- most people will want. I only outline how electricity is used in general. You still didn't answer the question to provide research about what people actually want from a utility company. What I see in the NL is that most people have long term fixed price contracts or contracts with prices that change twice a year. Companies that offer spot prices are rare and have very few customers. IOW: any proposed solution that is based on spot pricing will have an extremely large uphill battle to gain acceptance & market penetration. At least in the NL...

Well, there is already a crude way to estimate how many Octopus Go customers there are, one of many tariffs that works on off peak electricity for EV and other use.  Their EVs switch on at 0030 and off at 0430 due to timed charging (this is the only provider using the half-hourly start).  You can already detect this in the grid data.  Here is a grid engineer talking about this phenomenon.

They were noticing around 600MW step change - so in EVs alone at 7kW that's 85,000 customers in 2021.  There were about 600k EVs in 2021 in the UK, so Octopus managed to capture a good 7% of the market.  But this is a lower bound, as there will be EVs not plugged in, those on other off peak tariffs, etc.   And of course the situation in 2023 is even bigger, but minutely data for the grid isn't publicly available at the moment.

Early days, but there's clearly demand for those services.

Also this:
https://www.nationalgrideso.com/news/domestic-flexibility-could-reduce-peak-electricity-demand-23-new-study-shows
 

Offline Siwastaja

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #184 on: April 16, 2023, 11:31:55 am »
so Octopus managed to capture a good 7% of the market

Yeah. I don't have the slightest fear of the market being niche. It's the opposite, if anything I fear the competition being very tough, with some very large players appearing and taking the jackpot (with the combination of good enough product, and brute force marketing.)
 

Offline nctnico

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #185 on: April 16, 2023, 11:35:57 am »
There are periods of times when fixed contracts are cheaper for a while, and people get scared and get rid of their spot price contracts, but then they regret it a few months later when the opposite, and usually larger spike happens.
And this is exactly why spot price contracts are not suitable for a large number of people. With a fixed income it is much easier to deal with fixed costs than surprise costs. Keep in mind that a lot of people don't have financial reserves and/or capability to deal with strongly fluctuating living costs.

To give an example: A long time ago I had a variable interest rate mortgage. At some point (IIRC around 2009) that got bumped up from 4% to 6.5%. Fortunately that is announced well in advance so I could take measures, but a spot price changes at 'random' so you never know what you are going to pay in advance. You really need to be setup for that.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2023, 11:47:42 am by nctnico »
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #186 on: April 16, 2023, 11:38:05 am »
... have less chance of an accident.

maybe I don't know English but I think that should be risk not chance...

Chance and risk are roughly interchangeable in that context. Lower risk == less chance of something bad happening.

In my mind when it is the probability of something bad happening it is a risk, not a chance

you wouldn't say, those exposed wires are a safety chance
It’s not either “chance” or “risk”, but rather that “risk” is a subset of “chance”: A risk is a chance of something bad happening.

“Chance” contains no connotation of positive or negative, it simply means it could happen. So “chance” can be paired with a desirable or undesirable (or neutral) occurrence.

So no, you couldn’t say that “exposed wires are a safety chance” because your stated outcome - safety (a positive thing) - contradicts the rest of the sentence. Although “chance” and “risk” are really both the wrong word, we’d actually say a “safety hazard”.
 

Offline Siwastaja

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #187 on: April 16, 2023, 11:50:01 am »
And this is exactly why spot price contracts are not suitable for a large number of people. With a fixed income it is much easier to deal with fixed costs than surprise costs.

That is perfectly understandable, and no one is taking that option from you.

Yet surprisingly many got into the trap of signing up into massively expensive fixed cost and chose to drop their room temperature and start taking cold showers to compensate because they don't have the money to pay for the "much easier to deal with" fixed cost, then complain it's the fault of others they signed up with a bad deal and that the state should compensate by redistributing taxpayer money.

Therefore, fixed cost is no silver bullet either. People are weird and make stupid decisions with money. The best feature of a spot contract is that you can terminate it whenever you want.

BTW, I'm one of those idiots and have a fixed contract. At 0.13e/kWh, not nearly as bad as many others, but still more than spot average, which I do regret but can't do anything about it.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2023, 11:53:12 am by Siwastaja »
 

Offline nctnico

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #188 on: April 16, 2023, 11:55:22 am »
And this is exactly why spot price contracts are not suitable for a large number of people. With a fixed income it is much easier to deal with fixed costs than surprise costs.

That is perfectly understandable, and no one is taking that option from you.

Yet surprisingly many got into the trap of signing up into massively expensive fixed cost and chose to drop their room temperature and start taking cold showers to compensate because they don't have the money to pay for the "much easier to deal with" fixed cost, then complain it's the fault of others they signed up with a bad deal and that the state should compensate by redistributing taxpayer money. People are weird.
Yes, and at the same time it is that group of people that will demand levelling of prices and thus drive a grid storage oriented solution instead matching supply & demand. IOW: the problem isn't purely technical but also sociological.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2023, 12:09:57 pm by nctnico »
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline Siwastaja

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #189 on: April 16, 2023, 12:02:14 pm »
Yes, and at the same time it is that group of people that will demand levelling of prices and thus drive a grid storage oriented solution instead matching supply & demand.

Which cannot be suddenly implemented to the extent needed, so we work together with multiple solutions that aim for the same goal. Just like we still have both trains and cars.

The advantage of load management is that it is available NOW and works NOW, while you are hoping your total hydrogen solution will be available in 10 years, with no one knowing for sure if it's a realistic scenario or not.
 

Offline nctnico

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #190 on: April 16, 2023, 12:10:56 pm »
I'm not hoping anything. Only outlining what the limits are in the big picture (beyond what is logical from an engineering perspective only).
« Last Edit: April 16, 2023, 12:30:32 pm by nctnico »
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Offline Traceless

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #191 on: April 16, 2023, 01:00:21 pm »
FWIW I think it is a very good decision to get rid of all NPPs.

Why? Explain your reasoning.

There are a couple of good reasons:

It is a misconception that nuclear power is unconditionally cheap. Nuclear power is cheap because we use it in an irresponsible way. That is we reap the benefits py producing energy but do not deal with the environmental debt in form of nuclear waste but just keep piling it up in "intermediate storages" until we have a better idea. The ultimate plan seems to be that some unlucky commune is gonna draw the short straw and becomes the final nuclear waste disposal site. To this day the "final disposal problem has not been solved". One of the most vocal advocates of nuclear power in Germany is Bavaria, howevery strangely when it comes to the question where to put the waste they absolutely refuse to store the waste.

So the reasoning here is simple: If I want to use nuclear power I need to be willing to deal with the waste. So unless I'm a) willing to store nucelar waste in "my basement" (figuratively speaking) and b) to pay in advance all future maintenance cost for that storage until the waste becomes innocuous (i.e. the next 24000 to 1000000 years), I can not use nuclear power responsibly. Conclusion if I'm not (willing/able) to use nuclear power responsibly I shouldn't use it at all.

Another good argument is: "Uranium doesn't grow on trees" or more precisely If we use nuclear power we rely on imports. Apparently a lot of uranium comes from Russia which, for obvious reasons is not a partner you want to rely on for your energy supply. Of course there are other sources but ultimately the Russia crisis has demonstrated that crucial infrastructure should not be indirectly controlled by external actors. Simply put a country is not independent as long as it is not able to ensure its energy supply.

Bonus: A distributed power grid based on renewables is much more resilient against military attacks and natural disasters.

Gas should be substituted by hydrogen and the coal plants should be shut down ASAP as well of course and only serve as backups.
Where do you believe this magical hydrogen going to come from?

Germany is working on a giant off-shore wind-park. As others have mentioned there is still the transport problem because not every region in Germany is close to a coast. So using excess energy to produce hydrogen which then can be transported is a good solution.

So what about the cost? Yes energy in Germany is currently insanely expensive (for private households). However this is not a problem of renewable energy sources or the shutdown of nuclear power plants. But a political problem introduced
by the industrial lobby. Private households are forced to massively subsidize energy production for large companies. As you can see the average household paid 33,50 ct/kWh while the average business only pays 19,89ct/kWh and you can bet that
the largest consumers like Thyssen Krupp, BASF, Bayer, Rheinmetall etc. pay *a lot* less than that. So the price won't be a problem once we even out the energy price and have large companies pay their bills themselves.

So it is April 15 today. Is Germany dancing and partying ?  :popcorn:
Germans don't do such things, we build stuff ;)
« Last Edit: April 16, 2023, 01:12:44 pm by Traceless »
 
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Offline Neutrion

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #192 on: April 16, 2023, 01:23:22 pm »
There are periods of times when fixed contracts are cheaper for a while, and people get scared and get rid of their spot price contracts, but then they regret it a few months later when the opposite, and usually larger spike happens.
And this is exactly why spot price contracts are not suitable for a large number of people. With a fixed income it is much easier to deal with fixed costs than surprise costs. Keep in mind that a lot of people don't have financial reserves and/or capability to deal with strongly fluctuating living costs.

To give an example: A long time ago I had a variable interest rate mortgage. At some point (IIRC around 2009) that got bumped up from 4% to 6.5%. Fortunately that is announced well in advance so I could take measures, but a spot price changes at 'random' so you never know what you are going to pay in advance. You really need to be setup for that.

What people wan't often is what they got used to. In the world of renewables, flat aviabilily needs a lot of extra resource, while demand management needs some intelligence.
I bet people who are scared about changing tariffs are partly confused because they don't seem know when the electricity is cheap and when not. Changing that, and many like rob66(I am playing with that as well just for fun , and I can tell you it is NOT a big issue at all) are going to do some adjustments if that can save money. And the rich will pay for the extra tech and the flat tariff.

But to make an interesting comparison:
What is the cost of your planned H2 storage, how long can it store, what is the max capacity of it, how long will it take to charge it up, and how much is the NPP, and what is its rated max power? (Also its planned duty cycle is interesting as that is crucial to to see ROI in time.)

 

Offline nctnico

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #193 on: April 16, 2023, 01:26:05 pm »
So the reasoning here is simple: If I want to use nuclear power I need to be willing to deal with the waste. So unless I'm a) willing to store nucelar waste in "my basement" (figuratively speaking) and b) to pay in advance all future maintenance cost for that storage until the waste becomes innocuous (i.e. the next 24000 to 1000000 years), I can not use nuclear power responsibly. Conclusion if I'm not (willing/able) to use nuclear power responsibly I shouldn't use it at all.
There are a few misconceptions about nuclear waste. The fast decaying portions stop radiating quickly which happens in a 100 to 200 year time frame. After that the radiation levels are way more manageable and thus the waste is way easier/safer to store and handle. There is too much focus on 'radiation must be to zero before it is safe'. That is nonsense.

A much bigger concern is that nuclear waste is a concentration of toxic metals which remain toxic until the sun swallows the earth. However, there are other toxic/dangerous waste materials which we can't break down like asbestos and those simply get burried. So in the end the idea of storing nuclear waste underground is not such an alien idea at all.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline nctnico

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #194 on: April 16, 2023, 01:42:12 pm »
What is the cost of your planned H2 storage, how long can it store, what is the max capacity of it, how long will it take to charge it up, and how much is the NPP, and what is its rated max power? (Also its planned duty cycle is interesting as that is crucial to to see ROI in time.)
The 'home' hydride based storage system that was discussed on this forum a few years ago has an ROI of 30 years (based on low volume production pricing). IIRC it has power rating somewhere 4kW. But the capacity and durability outperformed Li-ion batteries by a large margin. You'd be going through several battery packs over the same time period. With the higher electricity prices that we have here at this moment and with solar panels added to the mix, the ROI would be much shorter.

Hydride storage is still in the ramp-up phase but it is a good contender for local / home storage solutions. Especially if you have solar panels or want to even out spot price volatility.
The solar panels I have on the roof are capped to 4200W (inverter limit) but I have no load that needs such an amount of power AND I can't rely on the solar panels delivering that amount of power every day. It doesn't mean that I'm going to buy a hydrite storage system right now but it is something I'm going to keep an eye on (just like battery storage).
« Last Edit: April 16, 2023, 01:46:48 pm by nctnico »
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline Neutrion

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #195 on: April 16, 2023, 01:50:34 pm »
What is the cost of your planned H2 storage, how long can it store, what is the max capacity of it, how long will it take to charge it up, and how much is the NPP, and what is its rated max power? (Also its planned duty cycle is interesting as that is crucial to to see ROI in time.)
The 'home' hydride based storage system that was discussed on this forum a few years ago has an ROI of 30 years (based on low volume production pricing). IIRC it has power rating somewhere 4kW. But the capacity and durability outperformed Li-ion batteries by a large margin. You'd be going through several battery packs over the same time period. With the higher electricity prices that we have here at this moment and with solar panels added to the mix, the ROI would be much shorter.

Hydride storage is still in the ramp-up phase but it is a good contender for local / home storage solutions. Especially if you have solar panels or want to even out spot price volatility.
The solar panels I have on the roof are capped to 4200W (inverter limit) but I have no load that needs such an amount of power AND I can't rely on the solar panels delivering that amount of power every day. It doesn't mean that I'm going to buy a hydrite storage system right now but it is something I'm going to keep an eye on (just like battery storage).

Sorry, I was asking about the planned hydrogen-nuclear power plant combo you mentioned what the Netherland is going to build.
 

Offline nctnico

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #196 on: April 16, 2023, 02:38:30 pm »
What is the cost of your planned H2 storage, how long can it store, what is the max capacity of it, how long will it take to charge it up, and how much is the NPP, and what is its rated max power? (Also its planned duty cycle is interesting as that is crucial to to see ROI in time.)
The 'home' hydride based storage system that was discussed on this forum a few years ago has an ROI of 30 years (based on low volume production pricing). IIRC it has power rating somewhere 4kW. But the capacity and durability outperformed Li-ion batteries by a large margin. You'd be going through several battery packs over the same time period. With the higher electricity prices that we have here at this moment and with solar panels added to the mix, the ROI would be much shorter.

Hydride storage is still in the ramp-up phase but it is a good contender for local / home storage solutions. Especially if you have solar panels or want to even out spot price volatility.
The solar panels I have on the roof are capped to 4200W (inverter limit) but I have no load that needs such an amount of power AND I can't rely on the solar panels delivering that amount of power every day. It doesn't mean that I'm going to buy a hydrite storage system right now but it is something I'm going to keep an eye on (just like battery storage).

Sorry, I was asking about the planned hydrogen-nuclear power plant combo you mentioned what the Netherland is going to build.
Aha. I didn't get that. According to the latest plans the new nuclear power plants should deliver a total power between 2GW and 3.3GW. Where it comes to hydrogen it is not really a combo. It looks like the aim is to have a total of 4GW worth of electrolysers to produce hydrogen by 2030 in the NL. The hydrogen storage (*) is being build regardless whether the nuclear power plants are actually going to be build. There is still debate about the location. Putting the new nuclear power plants near industry that needs both electricity and hydrogen or place the new power plants next to the existing nuclear power plant. Both have pros and cons.

* Underground either in salt caverns or empty gas fields. Empty gas fields are plenty and salt caverns can be made. The efficiency of underground storage is in the 98% ballpark.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2023, 03:03:20 pm by nctnico »
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Offline Neutrion

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #197 on: April 16, 2023, 03:05:27 pm »
What is the cost of your planned H2 storage, how long can it store, what is the max capacity of it, how long will it take to charge it up, and how much is the NPP, and what is its rated max power? (Also its planned duty cycle is interesting as that is crucial to to see ROI in time.)
The 'home' hydride based storage system that was discussed on this forum a few years ago has an ROI of 30 years (based on low volume production pricing). IIRC it has power rating somewhere 4kW. But the capacity and durability outperformed Li-ion batteries by a large margin. You'd be going through several battery packs over the same time period. With the higher electricity prices that we have here at this moment and with solar panels added to the mix, the ROI would be much shorter.

Hydride storage is still in the ramp-up phase but it is a good contender for local / home storage solutions. Especially if you have solar panels or want to even out spot price volatility.
The solar panels I have on the roof are capped to 4200W (inverter limit) but I have no load that needs such an amount of power AND I can't rely on the solar panels delivering that amount of power every day. It doesn't mean that I'm going to buy a hydrite storage system right now but it is something I'm going to keep an eye on (just like battery storage).

Sorry, I was asking about the planned hydrogen-nuclear power plant combo you mentioned what the Netherland is going to build.
Aha. I didn't get that. According to the latest plans the new nuclear power plants should deliver a total power between 2GW and 3.3GW. Where it comes to hydrogen it is not really a combo. The hydrogen storage is being build regardless whether the nuclear power plants are actually going to be build. There is still debate about the location. Putting the new nuclear power plants near industry that needs both electricity and hydrogen or place the new power plants next to the existing nuclear power plant. Both have pros and cons.

So there are no costs known yet? Not even the planned capacity for the H2 or any detail? How was the calculation done?

Because my assumption would be, that if you would take the money for the NPP, and instead build additional H2 storage(above the already planned), and/or renewable from the same amount, you would get a better solution.
Especially if you take into account, that because of the fluctuating renewables, the  selling price of the storaged electricity could go quiet high. While during the daytime in most of the cases the price of nuclear energy would be very low especially in the next 10-20 years, where we expect way more renewables to come. (With the floating wind turbines a lot of new possibilities open up.)
And if you using the NPP for the H2 filling, than again it would have to compete with with wind and solar. So I would really like to see how the calculations were done.
 

Offline nctnico

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #198 on: April 16, 2023, 03:48:28 pm »
AFAIK hydrogen storage in salt caverns is being build to store 36000 metric tonnes of hydrogen (as a start). The empty gas fields can potentially hold many times that much. So there isn't a practical limit in terms of storage capacity that is and/or can be made available in the NL.

The calculation has many factors. Nuclear, solar and wind are more or less on par where it comes to price per kWh to generate in the NL; around 4 euro cents per kWh. Transport costs through the grid are about the same or higher. This already shows that just looking at generation costs is going to skew any comparison if you don't take transport costs into account. Roundtrip efficiency for hydrogen is around 50% but is likely to improve significantly over time. But even at 50% efficieny, you are only looking at a price increase ballpark 33% at the consumer end because the transport costs are still the same (excluding taxes which make the relative cost for storage even smaller). Alternatively the hydrogen can also be used for an industrial process or vehicle that needs hydrogen anyway. On top of that, the NL intends to import and distribute hydrogen through the several sea ports it has which have direct pipeline connections deep into Europe.

And again, the nuclear power plants aren't intended to just produce hydrogen. Hydrogen production is supposed to happen when there is excess energy or when the hydrogen supply runs low. The nuclear power plants will primarily be feeding the grid.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2023, 05:56:55 pm by nctnico »
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline Siwastaja

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Re: Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
« Reply #199 on: April 16, 2023, 06:09:00 pm »
Did you or anyone consider storing thermal energy in said salt caverns and empty gas fields?

I mean, simple "unidirectional" geothermal (which replenishes simply through the surface of the Earth by the Sun) is very popular here in colder countries and is not that expensive. It means drilling a 200-meter deep hole in the bedrock or whatever soil type here. But you can also replenish it by reversing the direction. This is known to have time constant in many months to even annual scale. Some people do it even here. The Earth itself acts both as the storage medium and insulation (think about it as an infinite R-C ladder, each layer adding less and less effective C).

This could prove way more practical than hydrogen, but I don't know enough about the proposed hydrogen solution to really say anything about it for sure. It just sounds suspicious, while I know the geothermal storage option does actually work and has good track record, nothing novel in it.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2023, 06:17:13 pm by Siwastaja »
 


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