With regards to transmission congestion, that is easily fixed with installing batteries at currently storageless renewable generation facilities (the batteries then charge with excess solar, and can continue to discharge after the sun sets or the wind dies down, maximizing transmission utilization temporally). The Inflation Reduction Act also enables those batteries to charge from utility side if needed, whereas before they could only charge from the renewable generation (AC vs DC coupling).
However, there are other ways to store energy; unfortunately, most involve converting electricity to another form of energy such as potential (gravitational) energy, like pumping water uphill or lifting heavy weights. These also have relatively little long-term environmental cost. Unfortunately, they're a bit more inefficient (but so are batteries, relative to some other forms of stored energy such as fossil fuels).
It'd be interesting if we could find some ways to convert landfills or other urban blight issues into a durable energy store without poisoning the environment.
Lithium-ion, sure, but aren't there a whole host of other battery chemistries that are basically too big / too heavy to put on vehicles but a lot cheaper so well suited for stationary storage?
Are they all still at the research phase and so currently more expensive than the decades-of-learning-curve lithium-ion?
Sodium-ion is the second largest contender, with a few pilot facilities opening in China recently, but it will be a few years before it eclipses lithium-ion.
> For several reasons, including their relative bulkiness, vanadium batteries are typically used for grid energy storage, i.e., attached to power plants/electrical grids.
VRFBs' main advantages over other types of battery:
no limit on energy capacity
can remain discharged indefinitely without damage
...
wide operating temperature range including passive cooling
long charge/discharge cycle lives: 15,000-20,000 cycles and 10–20 years.
low levelized cost: (a few tens of cents), approaching the 2016 $0.05 target stated by the United States Department of Energy and the European Commission Strategic Energy Technology Plan €0.05 target
See also NPR's story: The U.S. made a breakthrough battery discovery — then gave the technology to China https://www.npr.org/2022/08/03/1114964240/new-battery-techno...
None of this is accurate. I encourage you to update your mental model with recent data. Citations below for your convenience. AMA, global energy transition is my passion.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/batteries-texas-consumers-6... ("Utility Dive: Batteries saved Texas consumers $683M during 2-day January freeze: Aurora Energy Research")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40919052 ("HN: China's Batteries Are Now Cheap Enough to Power Huge Shifts")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40601878 ("Lazard: IRA brings LCOS of 100MW, 4hr standalone BESS down as low as US$124/MWh"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35513612 ("HN: The biggest EV battery recycling plant in the US is open for business")
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-24/battery-r... | https://archive.today/OjA91 ("Bloomberg: Battery Recycling Shatters the Myth of Electric Vehicle Waste")
https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/2023-levelized-cost... ("Lazard: 2023 Levelized Cost Of Energy+")
https://raokonidena.substack.com/p/history-of-10000-cycles-o... ("History of 10,000 cycles or 10 year warranty for Battery Energy Storage System (BESS)")
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/85332.pdf ("NREL data shows BESS asset life is 15-20 years.")
https://web.archive.org/web/20240728011101/https://www.eia.g... (US EIA; gray installations are new battery storage planned for deployment over the next 12 months, June 2024 through May 2025)
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61202 ("US EIA: U.S. battery storage capacity expected to nearly double in 2024")
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61424 ("US EIA: Solar and battery storage to make up 81% of new U.S. electric-generating capacity in 2024")
https://www.woodmac.com/blogs/energy-pulse/battery-storage-b... ("Wood Mackenzie: Battery storage begins to play a key role for US grids")
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/07/climate/batte... ("NY Times: Giant Batteries Are Transforming the Way the U.S. Uses Electricity")
Seeing what you write, it seems more like an obsession disguised to support your ideologies
"Why did the U.S. miss the battery revolution?"
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-did-the-us-miss-the-batter...
About half the comments on the article were Americans saying very similar things to your comment and denying there was a revolution to have missed, which kind of answers the question posed.
