Nice TESLA battery array- 100 M.W. !

[TTman]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-40527784

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

[bitrex]

In case of emergency, a 129 MWh battery should be able to keep South
Australia running for a good extra 17 seconds!

[d...@yipee.com]

On Fri, 7 Jul 2017 13:32:22 +0100, TTman <pcw1...@ntlworld.com>
wrote:

>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-40527784
>
>---
With all the stories of Lithium-Ion batteries going up in flames,
doesn't this sound like a disaster waiting to happen?

>This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
>https://www.avast.com/antivirus
>
>
>---

>This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
>http://www.avg.com

[bitrex]

On 07/07/2017 12:52 PM, d...@yipee.com wrote:
> On Fri, 7 Jul 2017 13:32:22 +0100, TTman <pcw1...@ntlworld.com>
> wrote:
>
>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-40527784
>>
>> ---
> With all the stories of Lithium-Ion batteries going up in flames,
> doesn't this sound like a disaster waiting to happen?

With all the stories of petroleum plants going up in flames, doesn't it
sound like every hydrocarbon storage tank on Earth is a disaster waiting
to happen?

Ohmahgawd they are head for the hills!!!!!

[Clifford Heath]

Have you been to South Australia? (I don't mean south Australia)
There's not much there. A city of 1.3M, yes, but not 400k more in
the whole state; 640k households. That's 200WH/household. It won't
keep air conditioners running perhaps, but it'll keep the phones
and Internet working.

[upsid...@downunder.com]

Since the inverter output power is only 100 MW, so the 129 MWh
battery should last more than an hour. This is more than enough to
start any emergency diesel generators or gas turbines, which take 5 to
15 minutes to start and synchronize with the net.

[Rob]

How will that actually operate, assuming that there are no separate
grids for essential and non-essential equipment? Will there be
remotely controlled (and fast) switches that the power company can
control to switch off air conditioners in the event of a blackout
so they can effectively control the load to be below 100 MW before
the Tesla inverter takes over?

[bitrex]

Ok, that makes sense then. The Soviets tried to do something like that
by using turbines as flywheels while yanking the control rods around on
a reactor with a positive void coefficient, I read it didn't work out
too good...

[upsid...@downunder.com]

In practice, power companies make agreements with large loads such as
metal smelters or paper machines to shread the loads if there is a
severe energy shortage.

The BESS battery system in Alaska is capable of providing 40 MW for 15
minutes and during that time start the emergency gas turbines or
diesels.

The 100 MW for a million+ population sounds quite a bit low.

[upsid...@downunder.com]

On Sat, 8 Jul 2017 06:57:41 -0400, bitrex

The stupid test was initially required to be performed at the
Leningrad RBMK power plant (now south of St. Petersburg).

Fortunately for the western Europe, the engineers at that site
understood the risks and refused.

The test was then moved to Ukraine with known results :-(

[Rob]

Of course. But those are large installations and they probably have
a lot more controllability. Over here, the kWh price such a company
pays is proportional to the load they present during certain intervals
which are indicated by the power company as a high-load interval. So
the companies that try to optimize on their electricity bill already
have the control equipment in place to reduce their load in these
intervals.

> The BESS battery system in Alaska is capable of providing 40 MW for 15
> minutes and during that time start the emergency gas turbines or
> diesels.
>
> The 100 MW for a million+ population sounds quite a bit low.

That is why I wonder how it is done in this scenario.
I can understand that high loads are turned off, but how do you
do that in a city grid and will it be quick enough to switch over
to the backup without having an interruption anyway?

In the past, we were introduced to "smart meters" that would provide
metering with remote readout but also would enable remote switching by
the power company "to operate the grid in a more efficient way during
power shortages".
As this was widely frowned upon, with the fear of creating a kind of
classful grid where the consumers would have less reliable service
than some others, it was finally removed from the spec and the
"smart meters" that are now being installed do not have this capability
anymore. I think it was limited to a single circuit per meter anyway.

So, when you want to use this kind of backup and you do not want to
turn off entire neighborhoods, you probably have to install some kind
of remotely controlled switches on high-power but not-so-essential
equipment like air conditioners and electric heaters, and then you
have to be able to turn them off in 10ms or so, with the guarantee
that the remaining load will be below the 100 MW that Tesla is able
to supply.

I still wonder how they are going to pull this off.

[bitrex]

On 07/08/2017 11:41 AM, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:

>> Ok, that makes sense then. The Soviets tried to do something like that
>> by using turbines as flywheels while yanking the control rods around on
>> a reactor with a positive void coefficient, I read it didn't work out
>> too good...
>
> The stupid test was initially required to be performed at the
> Leningrad RBMK power plant (now south of St. Petersburg).

I didn't know that part. Shit!

[bitrex]

How long can the energy just stored in the EM fields in the grid hold
up? Long enough to switch in the batteries in AK apparently.

When the power fails it seems almost instant from my perception, but
it's probably not actually instant.

[John Larkin]

About 5 microseconds per mile.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

[Clifford Heath]

On 08/07/17 20:44, Rob wrote:
> Clifford Heath <no....@please.net> wrote:
>> On 07/07/17 23:17, bitrex wrote:
>>> On 07/07/2017 08:32 AM, TTman wrote:
>>>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-40527784
>>>>
>>>> ---
>>>> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
>>>> https://www.avast.com/antivirus
>>>>
>>>
>>> In case of emergency, a 129 MWh battery should be able to keep South
>>> Australia running for a good extra 17 seconds!
>>
>> Have you been to South Australia? (I don't mean south Australia)
>> There's not much there. A city of 1.3M, yes, but not 400k more in
>> the whole state; 640k households. That's 200WH/household. It won't
>> keep air conditioners running perhaps, but it'll keep the phones
>> and Internet working.
>
> How will that actually operate, assuming that there are no separate
> grids for essential and non-essential equipment? Will there be
> remotely controlled (and fast) switches that the power company can

> control to switch off air conditioners...

Actually, remote control (by grid signalling) new a/c units are
pretty commonplace here. The power company can disable a/c for
30 minutes at a time, rolling suburb by suburb to reduce the load
while keeping power on. I don't know more technical details though.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Fri, 07 Jul 2017 09:52:54 -0700, d...@yipee.com wrote:

>With all the stories of Lithium-Ion batteries going up in flames,
>doesn't this sound like a disaster waiting to happen?

I haven't seen any announcement as to the chemistry of the cells that
will be used to build the mega-battery for Australia. If it's Lithium
Iron Phosphate, you can short the terminals and it won't explode. The
wires will get hot, but there will not be a thermal runaway initiated
battery fire. They could supply the NCA (nickel cobalt aluminum
oxide) battery used in the Tesla motor cars. I believe that the lack
of reports of embarrassing battery fires is a good indication that
they're safe. However, it's most likely they will use the NMC (nickel
manganese cobalt oxide) which is used by the Tesla Power Wall (and is
cheaper than NCA. Sorry, but I don't have any info on the relative
safety of NMC batteries.

--
Jeff Liebermann je...@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

[Alan Folmsbee]

Are the big batteries made out of thousands of AA cells?

[bloggs.fred...@gmail.com]

Tesla is just the latest bubble about to pop. This fuckstory nerd, whatshisname, can't get anything working but keeps taking on new projects like getting a colony of one million on Mars by 2025 or something ridiculous. The investors, and there are lots of them, are in denial about the idiot.

[David Eather]

On Sun, 09 Jul 2017 13:17:56 +1000, Clifford Heath <no....@please.net>

wrote:

> On 08/07/17 20:44, Rob wrote:
>> Clifford Heath <no....@please.net> wrote:
>>> On 07/07/17 23:17, bitrex wrote:
>>>> On 07/07/2017 08:32 AM, TTman wrote:
>>>>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-40527784
>>>>>
>>>>> ---
>>>>> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
>>>>> https://www.avast.com/antivirus
>>>>>
>>>>

>>>> Australia running for a good extra 17 seconds!
>>>
>>> Have you been to South Australia? (I don't mean south Australia)
>>> There's not much there. A city of 1.3M, yes, but not 400k more in
>>> the whole state; 640k households. That's 200WH/household. It won't
>>> keep air conditioners running perhaps, but it'll keep the phones
>>> and Internet working.
>>
>> How will that actually operate, assuming that there are no separate
>> grids for essential and non-essential equipment? Will there be
>> remotely controlled (and fast) switches that the power company can
>> control to switch off air conditioners...
>
> Actually, remote control (by grid signalling) new a/c units are
> pretty commonplace here. The power company can disable a/c for
> 30 minutes at a time, rolling suburb by suburb to reduce the load
> while keeping power on. I don't know more technical details though.

Is that the story that was in silicon chip magazine for april 1? As far as
that battery is concerned it is only to make up temporary shortfalls while
gas generators are fired up. It is big enough for that.
--
Using Opera's mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

[Rob]

It is not very useful when it cannot supply the power for that brief
period of time. When the average consumption is above 100 MW there
has to be quick action to reduce the consumption below 100 MW at the
moment of failure. When there is no separate grid for non-essential
equipment that can be switched off, how is this accomplished?

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sun, 9 Jul 2017 09:08:29 -0700 (PDT), Alan Folmsbee
<omni...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Are the big batteries made out of thousands of AA cells?

Not AA cells.

The South Australia system might be similar to the one Tesla delivered
to SCE that stores 80MW-hrs:
<https://electrek.co/2017/01/23/tesla-mira-loma-powerpack-station-southern-california-edison/>
<http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-powerpack-southern-california-edison-battery-storage-mira-loma-2017-1>
That shows 16,000 cells per power pack pod, which delivers
0.21MW-hr/pack. The installation has an 80MW-hr capacity, which would
be:
80MW-hr / 0.21MW-hr/pack = 381 packs
381 packs * 16,000 cells/pack = 6.1 million cells.
or....
<https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/6/14523196/tesla-battery-powerpack-los-angeles-electricity>
"The SCE facility at Mira Loma has 396 Power packs, each with
16 pods of batteries inside. Each pod has 12 bricks of cells,
and each brick has 85 battery cells. Add ‘em all up and it’s
6,462,720 individual "2170" battery cells, so named because
they’re 21 x 70mm cylinders".
Yikes. Increase everything by 20% for 100MW-hrs.

Note that just because the battery can store 400MW-hrs, doesn't mean
that it can deliver all 400MW-hrs. It's not considered a good thing
to discharge LiIon batteries down to near zero SoC (state of charge).
For long life, my guess(tm) is only about 25% of the battery capacity
can be used:
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodadams/2017/07/07/megahype-over-tesla-battery-capable-of-providing-nameplate-power-for-less-than-80-minutes/#74f4ef2a4919>
<http://www.news.com.au/national/south-australia/confusion-over-elon-musks-battery-offer-for-south-australia/news-story/0f561d440363f4c7b50818eba86d126e>

Incidentally, there's quite a bit of confusion at all levels on MW
(mega watts) and MW-hr (megawatt hours). To deliver 100MW for 4 hrs
requires a 400 MW-hr system. I've done my best to untangle the units
but I'm still not sure if Tesla is delivering a 100MW, 100MW-hr, or
400MW-hr system.

[Neon John]

On 09 Jul 2017 19:11:15 GMT, Rob <nom...@example.com> wrote:


>It is not very useful when it cannot supply the power for that brief
>period of time. When the average consumption is above 100 MW there
>has to be quick action to reduce the consumption below 100 MW at the
>moment of failure. When there is no separate grid for non-essential
>equipment that can be switched off, how is this accomplished?

I explained that earlier. All utilities offer different tariffs for
different grades of service. At the top and most expensive is the
high reliability service which achieves that status by multiple
redundant feeds. Steel mills, paper mills, glass mills and other
industries that simply can't suffer a shutdown fall into this
category.

Next category is the ordinary service. It may be interrupted in a
dire emergency but the granularity is poor - a whole neighborhood or
small town, etc. One term for this is "rolling blackouts".

The bottom category with the lowest cost is so-called "sheddable"
loads. That is, loads that can be shed with little to no warning. An
example would be the M&M Mars candy plant that is nearby. They have
no processes that require a long time to start up nor present a hazard
if suddenly stopped so they get cheaper power.

There are variations and sub-tariffs but you get the idea.

John
John DeArmond
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.tnduction.com
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
See website for email address

[Rob]

Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com> wrote:
> Incidentally, there's quite a bit of confusion at all levels on MW
> (mega watts) and MW-hr (megawatt hours). To deliver 100MW for 4 hrs
> requires a 400 MW-hr system. I've done my best to untangle the units
> but I'm still not sure if Tesla is delivering a 100MW, 100MW-hr, or
> 400MW-hr system.

I think it was quite clear that it is a 100 MW, 127 MWh system.
I.e. it should be able to deliver 100 MW for about an hour.

[Rob]

It was my impression that the one and sole purpose of this system was
to prevent "rolling blackouts" in the case of a power shortage or outage.

So, covering the capacity limit with rolling blackouts does not appear
to be an option. It has to be more clever than that.

A detailed study of the power requirements of the area would have to
be made, but covering a 640k-household area with a 100 MW power backup
is going to be tricky at best, no matter how many non-essential customers
you are able to cut off (assuming those do not include the households).

As so often in energy technology, the claims made on the evening news
and in the daily papers rarely withstand back-of-the-envelope analysis.

[Neon John]

On 10 Jul 2017 09:29:49 GMT, Rob <nom...@example.com> wrote:


>A detailed study of the power requirements of the area would have to
>be made, but covering a 640k-household area with a 100 MW power backup
>is going to be tricky at best, no matter how many non-essential customers
>you are able to cut off (assuming those do not include the households).

A lot depends on whether they have small load shedding such as I
previously describe that TVA experimented with.

I agree that 100MWe isn't all that much and for reasons previously
stated is bad technology but every little bit counts, I guess. A much
better investment, IMO, would be one of the jet engine-based peaking
turbines that can go from cold start to fully loaded in less than 30
seconds.

If they are like here in the Tennessee Valley, the limit will be
distribution network capacity and not generation capacity. "100%",
e.g., rated output of a power plant is never full throttle. There is
always some emergency reserve.

An example is the nearby Sequoyah nuclear plant, the plant I "grew up"
in. It's nominal rating was 1150 MWe. It was recently uprated to
1400 MWe, still with some emergency margin. The plant could go that
high all along. Upgrades were made mostly to the turbine generator to
improve cooling so that 1400 MWe can be a continuous rating and not
just a peak one.

Here the problem is distribution. Because of resistance to eminent
domain taking of easements and opposition from the econuts, building a
major transmission line has become a major undertaking. While the
fights go on, TVA simply overloads existing power line. We've had
several instances in recent years of transmission lines getting hot
enough to sag into tree-tops and start forest fires.

No idea whether this is a problem in South Australia but I'd not be
surprised to learn that it is.

[bill....@ieee.org]

On Monday, July 10, 2017 at 2:07:52 PM UTC+2, Neon John wrote:
> On 10 Jul 2017 09:29:49 GMT, Rob <nom...@example.com> wrote:
>
> >A detailed study of the power requirements of the area would have to
> >be made, but covering a 640k-household area with a 100 MW power backup
> >is going to be tricky at best, no matter how many non-essential customers
> >you are able to cut off (assuming those do not include the households).
>
> A lot depends on whether they have small load shedding such as I
> previously describe that TVA experimented with.
>
> I agree that 100MWe isn't all that much and for reasons previously
> stated is bad technology but every little bit counts, I guess. A much
> better investment, IMO, would be one of the jet engine-based peaking
> turbines that can go from cold start to fully loaded in less than 30
> seconds.

South Australia has at least one of them, but the local price of liquifiable petroleum gas just doubled, and during the attention-getting black-out - a few months a ago now - the company that should have turned one on decided that they weren't going to get paid enough for the power that should have been generated, and didn't bother.

I recently attended and IEEE lecture from the guy who originally designed the Australian electricity-generating market, and he was particularly irritated about the fact that the government hadn't fully implemented his design - chopping power into 30 minutes blocks, rather than the five minute blocks he had proposed.

The electricity generating company would have been able to charge a bundle for the crucial five minutes when the power went off - probably enough to persuade them to turn on the gas-turbine and prevent the black-out.

<snip>

> Here the problem is distribution. Because of resistance to eminent
> domain taking of easements and opposition from the econuts, building a
> major transmission line has become a major undertaking.

> No idea whether this is a problem in South Australia but I'd not be
> surprised to learn that it is.

The popuation density in Australia is 2.91 people per km^2, a tenth of that of the USA (32.4). South Australia isn't one of Australia's more densely populated states, and extra transmission lines aren't a problem.

The screw-up was entirely administrative. At this instant South Australia seems to be generating some 1.4GWatt - pretty much all of it from natural gas. The potential generating capacity seems to be about 4.5 GWatt, with as much 1.5 Gwatt of that coming from wind turbines (compared with the 5 MWatt being generated by wind at this instant).

129 Mwatt.hours of battery capacity at a maximum output of 100MWatt isn't much in that context.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

[Jasen Betts]

On 2017-07-09, Rob <nom...@example.com> wrote:

> David Eather <eat...@tpg.com.au> wrote:
>
> It is not very useful when it cannot supply the power for that brief
> period of time.

It does not need to supply all the power only the shortfall.

--
This email has not been checked by half-arsed antivirus software

[upsid...@downunder.com]

On 13 Jul 2017 05:55:18 GMT, Jasen Betts <ja...@xnet.co.nz> wrote:

>On 2017-07-09, Rob <nom...@example.com> wrote:
>> David Eather <eat...@tpg.com.au> wrote:
>>
>> It is not very useful when it cannot supply the power for that brief
>> period of time.
>
>It does not need to supply all the power only the shortfall.

100 MW is still quite small power, it is just one or two quick start
gas turbines.

Even if the capital Adelaide can be powered from other sources, there
are still about 400 000 people outside Adelaide. This will make 250 W
per capita for one hour.

Of course if there are gas or steam turbines running when some big
power source is lost, there will be some spinning reserves keeping the
net active until emergency gas turbines or diesel generators have
started.

[Rob]

Jasen Betts <ja...@xnet.co.nz> wrote:
> On 2017-07-09, Rob <nom...@example.com> wrote:
>> David Eather <eat...@tpg.com.au> wrote:
>>
>> It is not very useful when it cannot supply the power for that brief
>> period of time.
>
> It does not need to supply all the power only the shortfall.

Well, typical traditional power plants are in the 1000 MW (1 GW) ballpark,
so when one fails there is probably little that can be done with 100 MW.

When you are in a brief period of shortage it could be used, but when
such a shortage in the past has lead to area-wide outages there would
be other optimzations that can be made (described elsewhere in the thread).

[rickman]

I received an email yesterday asking me to reduce my electric use at peak
time between 3 and 6 PM. I lowered my AC temperature earlier and turned it
off at 3 PM. Unfortunately I had been out paddling and was wearing damp
clothes on return so I forgot to turn it back on until the inside temp got
above 80°F. I need to do this again today, so earlier I should have cranked
the temp down a couple of degrees.

--

Rick C

[rickman]

A friend had a thermostat that the power company could control. But if you
give it a bit of thought you will realize either your A/C or heat won't be
able to maintain temperature or this is pointless.

Thermostats cycle the system on and off to achieve a duty cycle that
maintains a given temperature in the home. Statistically a given
neighborhood will have some units on and some off resulting in a fairly
constant average load. Switching off a neighborhood for say 15 minutes will
result in many more units turning on when the system restores operation
resulting in the *same* average load. The only thing that changes is that
every A/C in the neighbor hood will be switching on at the same time.

Switching off a neighborhood for much longer than 15 minutes will result in
all the homes having temperatures outside of the set point range. In other
words, users will be getting hot (or cold depending on season).

How is that any different than just setting the thermostats back?

--

Rick C

[rickman]

upsid...@downunder.com wrote on 7/13/2017 4:00 AM:
> On 13 Jul 2017 05:55:18 GMT, Jasen Betts <ja...@xnet.co.nz> wrote:
>
>> On 2017-07-09, Rob <nom...@example.com> wrote:
>>> David Eather <eat...@tpg.com.au> wrote:
>>>
>>> It is not very useful when it cannot supply the power for that brief
>>> period of time.
>>
>> It does not need to supply all the power only the shortfall.
>
> 100 MW is still quite small power, it is just one or two quick start
> gas turbines.

You can say the same thing about the gas turbines, "that is quite small power".

> Even if the capital Adelaide can be powered from other sources, there
> are still about 400 000 people outside Adelaide. This will make 250 W
> per capita for one hour.
>
> Of course if there are gas or steam turbines running when some big
> power source is lost, there will be some spinning reserves keeping the
> net active until emergency gas turbines or diesel generators have
> started.

Did anyone say the electric batteries are intended to solve the entire
problem? There is no part of the electric power supply system that stands
alone.

--

Rick C

[rickman]

"Can't get anything working"??? What about the car company Tesla? How did
he get his billions in the first place?

--

Rick C

[Rob]

rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> A friend had a thermostat that the power company could control. But if you
> give it a bit of thought you will realize either your A/C or heat won't be
> able to maintain temperature or this is pointless.

I think the idea is that most people would not mind if the temperature
is a bit above/below the setting when in exchange they keep getting power
for other appliances and lighting. The alternative would be a complete
blackout for part of the users.

Of course only when it happens occasionally and not too long at a time.

[k...@notreal.com]

Programmable thermostat.

[k...@notreal.com]

From your wallet.

[rickman]

A couple days ago the electric company sent an email asking us to cut back
our electric usage between 3 and 6. I cut off my A/C after cranking the
temp down a couple of degrees beforehand. It rose from about 77 to 80°F in
those three hours, but it was a bit cloudy today even if the outside temp
was 94°F. Yesterday it was at 75°F and rose to 80 in three hours. I
didn't mind it so I programmed my thermostat to drop the temp around noon
and cut it off between 3 and 6 every day. We'll see how that works out for
me. If it gets much above 80 in the house I won't like it, but 80 is ok. I
should rig up a recorder.

Coconut oil is a good home temperature moderator. It melts around 76°F
(actually a range up to 80°F since it is not chemically pure). It would be
a big help in the summer to moderate temperatures during the peak power
usage time.

--

Rick C

[Jasen Betts]

On 2017-07-13, rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I received an email yesterday asking me to reduce my electric use at peak
> time between 3 and 6 PM. I lowered my AC temperature earlier and turned it
> off at 3 PM. Unfortunately I had been out paddling and was wearing damp
> clothes on return so I forgot to turn it back on until the inside temp got
> above 80°F. I need to do this again today, so earlier I should have cranked
> the temp down a couple of degrees.

stick a small heater (maybe 0.25W) under/inside the thermostant and switch it
using a timer switch.

[rickman]

Jasen Betts wrote on 7/18/2017 2:57 AM:
> On 2017-07-13, rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I received an email yesterday asking me to reduce my electric use at peak
>> time between 3 and 6 PM. I lowered my AC temperature earlier and turned it
>> off at 3 PM. Unfortunately I had been out paddling and was wearing damp
>> clothes on return so I forgot to turn it back on until the inside temp got
>> above 80°F. I need to do this again today, so earlier I should have cranked
>> the temp down a couple of degrees.
>
> stick a small heater (maybe 0.25W) under/inside the thermostant and switch it
> using a timer switch.

Or I can use the programming feature of the thermostat...

I remember the early days of setback thermostats. The low cost ones were
exactly that, a small heater with a timer that you mounted under the
thermostat.

--

Rick C

[k...@notreal.com]

The X10 programmable thermostats were exactly that.