It's hard to wrap your head around all the challenges in energy. If you're REALLY good at it you can find some incredible arbitrage opportunities...see Enron.
Consider the power output characteristics of some common energy sources:
Gas, Nuclear, Hydro, Wind, Solar
Our "sustainable" sources of power - hydro, wind, and solar - are also the ones with the most irregular and unpredictable power output. This creates a problem, because even if there was enough cumulative power output from sustainable sources today, it most likely wouldn't align with our usage schedule.
So there are two solutions: 1) find a way to map the sustainable power output to our usage 2) find a way to store energy
Today, our most readily available form of energy storage is gas. We just put it in a container and burn it when we need to. "Spin it up," if you will.
An alternative to gas is a crazy network of Powerwalls. The hope is that, eventually, instead of spinning up gas turbines during peak demand, we can just draw from our Powerwall.
There was another alternative on HN recently. Basically a super-deep hole in the ground with super heavy object falling into it, but suspended by a rope. You run a motor to lift the object during off-peak hours, then let it fall and spin a generator during peak hours. I can't find it right now but I remember thinking they had a great name.
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That said, power output is only part of the problem. If you're looking to factor the potential disappearance of arbitrage opportunities into your buying decision, you also need to consider the time until regulatory changes allow for perfect pricing, and the time until these Powerwalls have precise enough information to decide exactly when to draw from the grid versus the battery.
tl;dr: "quickly" is probably optimistic. We're a long ways away from economies of scale.
Actually, hydro with reservoirs is not just very predictable, it's the least expensive source to turn on-off-half on demand, or even to run in reverse as a storage mechanism with some upgrades.
> There was another alternative on HN recently. Basically a super-deep hole in the ground with super heavy object falling into it, but suspended by a rope.
Both are basically the same concept as pumped hydro which has been in use for a long time... pump water up a hill when energy is cheap, let it fall down and turn a turbine when energy is expensive. And hey, if it rains, free energy!
The rail/hole in the ground approach have the advantage of taking up less land I suppose, but I suspect are less efficient.
Consider the power output characteristics of some common energy sources:
Gas, Nuclear, Hydro, Wind, Solar
Our "sustainable" sources of power - hydro, wind, and solar - are also the ones with the most irregular and unpredictable power output. This creates a problem, because even if there was enough cumulative power output from sustainable sources today, it most likely wouldn't align with our usage schedule.
So there are two solutions: 1) find a way to map the sustainable power output to our usage 2) find a way to store energy
Today, our most readily available form of energy storage is gas. We just put it in a container and burn it when we need to. "Spin it up," if you will.
An alternative to gas is a crazy network of Powerwalls. The hope is that, eventually, instead of spinning up gas turbines during peak demand, we can just draw from our Powerwall.
There was another alternative on HN recently. Basically a super-deep hole in the ground with super heavy object falling into it, but suspended by a rope. You run a motor to lift the object during off-peak hours, then let it fall and spin a generator during peak hours. I can't find it right now but I remember thinking they had a great name.
---
That said, power output is only part of the problem. If you're looking to factor the potential disappearance of arbitrage opportunities into your buying decision, you also need to consider the time until regulatory changes allow for perfect pricing, and the time until these Powerwalls have precise enough information to decide exactly when to draw from the grid versus the battery.
tl;dr: "quickly" is probably optimistic. We're a long ways away from economies of scale.