Mine is bigger than yours...

The situation on the grid right now is that peak renewable generation may not match up with demand or vice versa. When there is too much renewable generation at the time, those renewables get turned off, because it is less costly to do so than other power sources, specially steam plants. When the renewables are too low, natural gas peaker plants get turned on.

So we can build these grid batteries, with cells that are good enough now, which will increase the amount of renewable energy actually used on the grid, while reducing the amount of fossil fuels burned. When better cells become available, these grid installations will be upgraded to use them.

Or we can stick with the status quo, because the cells aren't perfect, and we have to waste some of their capacity. Doing means we waste renewable generation potential and fossil fuels.

hypocrite
a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings

You state we shouldn't build these large grid batteries now because the battery technology isn't perfect. Yet you are driving a car using the same imperfect technology. The main reasons for building these grid batteries are the same ones for buying a plug in; to conserve finite fuels and reduce emissions. Installing them on the grid or in a car increases the cost of both. If they aren't good enough for the grid now, they aren't good enough for a car.

 

Also, they're not wasting the lithium, it's not one-time-use. Recycling is a possibility.

 

You are confusing and conflating different things.

 

The battery that I am using is in a CAR. The other is a fixed unit (cannot be transported as in a car while it's working there) for powering a COMMUNITY. That's a big difference to me. If I run out of electric range, then so be it, I switch to gas. But if there's a power outage in a community, God forbid that they don't have that extra bit of electrical energy on reserve while the power grid is still down just because they use less-efficient big batteries.

 

Oh, I see, you are misunderstanding how this grid batteries will be used.
When there are excess renewables, the batteries will get charged to provide power when the renewables aren't available.
If the battery charge doesn't last, the peaker plants, like the engine in your car, are still there to provide power.

 

I'm still confused by the apparent lack of interest in the technology below. It's cheaper and scalable and not as prone to such functional degradation. I'd like to hear what @bwilson4web and @Elektroingenieur have to say on the potential, (no pun intended).

redT energy | Industrial energy storage

 

Has potential.
Vanadium redox battery - Wikipedia

Li-ion batteries have about ten times the energy density of these flow batteries. Which might limit the flow batt's usefulness for large scale projects.

The main hurdle I see to their widespread use is with the vanadium. It is toxic, and these batteries are storing it in an aqueous solution; spills are a concern. Then what is produced is already going to other uses; such as high strength steel(not for cars, that's boron) and titanium(jet turbines), sulphuric acid production, and IR blocking coatings for glass. 97% of it comes from China, Russia, and South Africa, so there might be political and strategic reasons to avoid heavy investment in it.
Vanadium - Wikipedia

 

I have no problem with advocating different battery technologies:

Graphene is an alternate separator or separator treatment. A separator fits between the electrodes and prevents the cell electrodes from making an internal short. Graphene has exceptional strength for hopefully a stronger separator but it is just one part of cell.

To my way of thinking, this is a new technology moving from lab to market. Usually such moves involve higher initial costs because new manufacturing has to be established with early, capital investment. Eventually, the new technology becomes cost competitive and replaces the old ... much like laptop lead-acid cells gave way to NiMH and replaced by LiON.

Today, LiON production using existing separators is a mature technology so batteries can be ordered by the ton. Graphene separator cells are entering the RC model market and if cost effective, laptop and other purposes. But they have to be price-performance competitive with today's cells and that is an economic problem.

It isn't a question of whether the technology works but how much it costs 'by the ton.'

Bob Wilson

 

I think solid state batteries would be of immerse benefits in the quest for a more efficient technology (solution).