Storage Units A do-it-yourself guide to nullifying the green new math.

 Nov 05, 2024

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“In science, there is only physics; all the rest is stamp collecting.” – Lord Kelvin

In the commodity and materials sectors, new products and processes typically follow a carefully synchronized series of scaling steps before reaching full commercial volumes. Advances developed in the laboratory are piloted in small facilities, after which key findings are fed back to engineering teams. Assuming no showstoppers are found, a market development plant is then constructed to supply enabling customers. Once product-market fit and manufacturing viability are confirmed, construction of a commercial facility commences. At each step, surprises are often encountered, workarounds found, and designs tweaked. No sane company would risk big money by skipping directly to the end.

Given the vital role electricity grids play in modern life, it is astounding that governments the world over are directing trillions of dollars of taxpayer money toward the transition to wind, solar, and batteries without first demonstrating whether a system based solely on those technologies is even viable. For all the talk of decarbonization and kicking fossil fuels to the curb, there is not a single city, region, state, or country that runs a workable grid using exclusively intermittent renewables and storage. Blogger Francis Menton of Manhattan Contrarian has been calling for such a demonstration for some time, correctly predicting disastrous results should it occur:

“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why the costs explode.  They can build thousands of wind turbines and solar panels, but they can’t get rid of any of the dispatchable power plants because they are all needed for backup.  So now they are paying for two duplicative systems.  Then they must pay the dispatchable plants enough to cover their capital costs at half time usage.  Then they must buy the fossil fuels for backup on spot markets where production has been suppressed by, for example, banning fracking….

Nobody would be happier than me to see a demonstration project built that showed that wind and solar could provide reliable electricity at low cost.  Unfortunately, I know too much about the subject to think that that is likely, or even remotely possible.  But at least the rest of us need to demand a demonstration project from the promoters of these fantasies.”

Let’s call the bluff | Getty

Menton correctly fingers the culprit. The amount of storage needed to ensure grid reliability when renewables decide not to show up for work is cost-prohibitive in all reasonable scenarios, with the possible exception of places like Norway, Quebec, and Uruguay, where hydroelectric dams have a dominant share in generation. In those narrow circumstances— hydroelectric power is not scalable globally—water levels behind dams naturally act as giant batteries, allowing grid operators to incorporate more wind and solar than is typically possible. Even then, extended droughts or excessive flooding can spoil the party.

Proponents of renewables argue that battery costs are coming down and, once enough of them are installed, intermittency can be solved. But just how much storage would be needed and at what expense? These are the questions a demonstration project would answer, of course, and the empirical results would surely deal a death blow to the green energy agenda. It is hardly an unsolved mystery why no one supporting the transition seems all that anxious to run the experiment.

That governments refuse to do the science does not preclude individuals from performing such trials at the dwelling level, something the Doomberg team has been undertaking for much of the past year. In January, we took possession of a cutting-edge battery system—a 3600-watt-hour (Wh) ECOFLOW Delta Pro with two extra 3600 Wh batteries. Ringing in at approximately $5,000, the purchase was anything but cheap, although the value is solid with a powerful total backup capacity of 10,800 Wh. The interface is smooth and intuitive, the batteries link together via powerful cables, and the control system smartly balances load management and recharge rates across the three units for optimal performance. (Doomberg is not sponsored by ECOFLOW, we researched and paid for the units ourselves, and we came to our conclusions about these products as fully independent analysts.)

Next to the gun safe in the gym | Doomberg

Armed with a suitably large electricity buffer, we set about the task of measuring just how much insurance against grid disruptions such an expenditure secures. For how long could a house connected to a unicorn grid persist with this setup if the sun wasn’t shining and the wind wasn’t blowing? How many of these systems would be required to insure against a prolonged period of Dunkelflaute? Let’s find out.

 

We begin with our tests of the basic electronics integral to modern life. As testimony to the exponentially increasing energy efficiency of computing, our ECOFLOW batteries could recharge an iPhone nearly a thousand times before needing a resupply themselves. A large iPad could be repowered some 250 times, while our MacBook Pro laptop was good for about 100 runs. These numbers were extrapolated after 5-10 recharge cycles for each device, and our experience roughly squares with their stated battery capacities.

Things got a little more interesting when we powered a refrigerator with our setup. Over a 24-hour period of normal operation, our fridge consumed about 1,800 Wh of power. If this were the only task assigned to our power station during an extended blackout, it would conk out after six days. Of course, one could stretch things a little further by only powering the fridge intermittently, but our goal was to ascertain baseline performance while maintaining the current standard.

Which one performs best with intermittent power?

Having dispatched the easy stuff, let’s now confront the real limits of the “electrify everything” ideal by powering the unavoidable energy hogs of a typical home.

Consider the lowly water heater. Although ours plugs into the wall and ostensibly uses electricity, the bulk of the work is done by burning natural gas—water is kept warm via this literal fire. All-electric varieties do exist, however, and a quick search of the internet yielded a standard-looking one for sale at Lowe’s. Since the US government requires detailed reporting of the performance of such appliances to be prominently displayed on Energy Guide stickers, we can run some math. At 3,531 kWh per year, this water heater requires 9,673 Wh per day or roughly 90% of our battery’s total capacity.

A lotta juice | A.O. Smith

By far the largest slice of the energy budget of the average home is directed toward achieving thermal comfort. It is generally accepted that people are most comfortable when the temperature is between 67°F and 82°F and the humidity is between 30% and 60%. It takes an enormous amount of power to maintain such favorable settings. In the summer, an average-sized air conditioning unit might draw 3,500 Watts while in operation, depleting our battery system in just over three hours.

Heating a home in the winter is another matter altogether, and here, too, we must confront the fact that most furnaces use a combination of electricity and fossil fuels to complete the task. In an all-electric home, one would have to rely exclusively on heat pumps, devices lauded for their energy efficiency and the focus of much controversy. Our batteries could power a highly efficient pump for a paltry 4.5 hours:

“The Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio (SEER) rating of a heat pump indicates its efficiency. A 3-ton unit with a 14 SEER drains about 3,061 watts. Compare that with a pump of the same tonnage but with a 22 SEER that consumes 2,406 watts. This shows the big difference in power usage between highly efficient units and their less efficient counterparts.”

Of course, energy use in the average household isn’t limited to the basics covered thus far (care to brew some coffee?), nor do people carefully sequence their operations. In the canorous hum of modern life, people simultaneously cook food, dry clothes, watch television, run the dishwasher, and maintain a comfortable temperature—some even charge their electric vehicles. (Incidentally, it would take eight recharge cycles of our battery system to charge a Tesla once.) 

Doing your bit? | Getty

According to data from the US Department of Energy, the average US household uses 10,500 kWh of electricity per year, or 28,800 Wh per day, which would require three sets of our battery system to support. (The average home size in the US is a shade under 2,500 square feet.) Simple thermodynamics dictates an all-electric home would consume at least twice that amount, if not more. It would therefore require six of our systems—18 batteries in total that collectively weigh over 1,500 pounds—to back up the average utopian home for just a single day. 

But would this suffice? What about redundancy while the system is recharging after a full day of use? What about seasonal surge? During the coldest days of the year, in the dead of winter, when those heat pumps need to run around the clock to barely keep up, solar incidence is usually at its lowest and winds can be calm for a week or more. During the rare moments when the sun does shine brightly, homeowners need to have been wise enough to have installed enough solar panels to both run the home and recharge an army of depleted batteries.

Would you trust the comfort and safety of your family to just 18 of these batteries? 50? 100? 

When the solution is a Pandora’s box of discomfort, expense, and degradation, perhaps it is time to revisit the appraisal of the problem.

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