A Reader Replies To NYC And Batteries -- December 28, 2020

After posting my note regarding NYC and batteries, a regular reader provided me the following, unedited. 

From a reader:

I was having a back and forth with an Aussie, yesterday. He was telling me how wonderful the tesla battery is and I was proving how wrong he was. fun. 

 So today, when I saw the nyc storage post, I had to revisit my post and mark it up.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-27/tesla-battery-cost-revealed-two-years-after-blackout/10310680

South Australia

The 129 megawatt system installed by Tesla offers a way to tackle the variable power generated by wind and solar generators - it stores up the energy until it is needed and distributes it through the grid during lower generation periods. 

A 505-page report released by Neoen this month ahead of an initial public offering suggested the battery cost around $90 million, at the current exchange rate.

"It actually costs taxpayers' money. There's a cost of $4-5 million a year to have the battery in place. (I have no idea what this is for rental, lease? Whatever).

"There are more costs than that involved”.

End copy paste

Notes (rough estimate 1^st plush) The 210kw/mo typical family power bill is for an American family in cheap power city.

$90,000,000/129mw=$  698,000 /mw (2017 rush job, so 2021 installed cost $500K/mw?)(us$375K/mw). Wow, no wonder Musk is a multi-billionaire!

EIA 2019:For a standalone storage system, assuming a constant battery price of $209 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), the installed system costs vary from $380/kWh for a four-hour battery system ($95,000/mwh use $100,000 to ease math)

Average kw/mo. 210kw/30 = 7kw/day x 7,000 homes=49mw=2 ½ days of storage

(3 /½ people/ residence)= 24,500 population city

After 2 days of calm winds, the city has to be back on the grid unless serious “load shedding” is far and wide.

(100 mw of storage is one thing, 4000 mw is another: @$100,000 mwh=$4 Billion, and Cali, August 16, 2020 actually needed 4000 mwh for 4 hrs = $16 Billion. (1)

Lithium battery storage is too expensive, now and it always will be. Flow batteries aren’t going to cut costs in half, $4 billion is still hopeless).

Copy:

(1)    Steve Berberich, president and chief executive officer of California I.S.O., said the system could be short about 4,400 megawatts of power in the late afternoon. “It’s going to be highly disruptive to people,” Mr. Berberich said. “We’re going to do everything we can to narrow that gap.”

Copy  paste from The Million Dollar Way

NYC presently peaks at around 32,000 MW needed to keep the lights on.  

So for reliability we need, say, seven days of backup, which is 168 hours. Here’s the math:

32,000 MW x 168 hours = 5,376,000 MWh of stored juice needed to just make it.  Mind you for normal reliability we usually add 20% or so. 

Cost: how much will this 45 seconds of backup power cost? One-half billion dollars.  

So, what would it cost to reliably back up wind power for NYC? $8 trillion.  

5,376,000 mwh x $100,000/mwhr=$5,376,000,000

60 sec/min *60 min/hr*168hr/wk
5,376,000,000 /604800

 

$ 8,888.89 *45 sec =    $399,553.57 (equiv. to $1/B, I used a more conservative mwh cost