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Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 29, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Not really. It’s a known issue with some solutions that while not perfect, help quite a bit.

Offshore wind is much less volatile.

Distributed battery systems have started deploying over the last couple of years.

There’s some interesting applications of long duration storage tech. For example, I think there is a rust-iron battery that has very long and cheap storage where you rust and de rust iron.

Companies are actually deploying pilot storage tech right now.

We’re likely moving to a world where the sunny areas have solar plus storage. The east coast has offshore wind. And we have a large fleet of gas turbine plants that can be dispatched quickly when needed. Not exactly peakers, but flexible enough to support the intermittent resources.

SMR isn’t even on the map.

Distributed battery systems have started deploying over the last couple of years.

Do you know of anywhere public I can read about the deployment of grid-scale energy storage systems? I've been under the impression that this was mostly speculation and proposals from various academics and think-tanks, with little actual construction and deployment going on.

Many companies and developers are installing grid-tied battery storage systems at massive scale. Especially in California. The battery storage revolution is here.

Thanks for asking. I haven’t googled this in a while but it looks like the iron air battery projects are moving right along.

Here’s some detail that was just announced on Friday. It’s all moving very quickly.

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/xcel-energy-form-energy-storage-coal-iron-battery/641386/