alt Hacker NewsI build off-grid camper vans for a living and install solar + lithium battery systems regularly. The technology has matured a lot in the last few years. What used to take a massive roof array and a bank of heavy lead-acid or AGM batteries to run basic appliances now fits in a fraction of the space with lithium. The limiting factor in real-world installs isn't the panels or the batteries anymore, it's getting customers to right-size the system for their actual usage instead of what they think they'll use. People consistently underestimate idle draws and overestimate how much sun they'll get. Scale that mindset problem up to a national grid and I imagine the challenge is the same.
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I doubt that issue scales to the national grid at all... national grids tend to dictated in size by more or less market forces not careful pre-planning... and capacity planning for new projects tends to have actual data about energy demand and weather patterns and so on.
Very nice. I have my eyes on Lithium-Titanate cells for my house, I can't wait until they go down in price enough. Weight and energy density are not an issue, but safety is and those cells are very good in that sense.
> Scale that mindset problem up to a national grid and I imagine the challenge is the same.
Except that we have raw data there? The only question is how fast it grows, but since we're transitioning that's mostly a question of how fast you decommission fossil plants.
there is a youtube video I watched where an RV guy converted as many appliances and gadgets on his vehicle to Direct DC as he could, saved a lot on wastage from DC-AC-DC conversions.
We need mundane home DC solutions.
While I agree with underestimating capacity, the problem only really applies to off grid.
For regular homes, it just means less savings.
I build off-grid electrical campers (Mercedes eSprinter) with extended 600kWh batteries (11 times more battery capacity than the default model) and charge them from solar panels at home. I disagree with your negative mindset, people who ride in my eCamper quickly learn you can go 100% solar and use you camper at home to store all neighbourhood solar and even charge other ev's from our eCamper battery. We make our own parallel battery cell dis/charger to extent the LFP battery life to 20000 charges (one a day for 50 years).