The tldr says 72% efficient. If it can store excess solar or wind from times they are not in use and release at times of higher demand, it should be great.
In all of this, we need diversity. Diversity of generation sources (solar, wind, tidal, etc). Diversity of storage (Chemical batteries, compressed air batteries, pumped hydro, etc). Each will have different sweet spots; cost vs reaction time vs capacity vs efficiency.
Try not to dismiss a technology just because it's not the whole solution. Nothing ever is. They all contribute a part to the big picture.
It would take 460 Tesla Megapack 2 XLs to be the same capacity as this. The biggest deployment so far of those is about 200 Megapacks 1 giving 450MWh capacity vs 1,800MWh for this.
The lithium batteries can supply the same power (300MW) and cost $160M. This cost $207M, so quite a lot cheaper given 4x the capacity.
Wouldn't this be horribly inefficient?
The tldr says 72% efficient. If it can store excess solar or wind from times they are not in use and release at times of higher demand, it should be great.
Better is always on the road to perfect.
Yeah that isn't as horrible as I had initially thought, though its still not great
You are right though something is better than nothing, but I wonder how this facilities cost compares to an equivalent battery storage facility
In all of this, we need diversity. Diversity of generation sources (solar, wind, tidal, etc). Diversity of storage (Chemical batteries, compressed air batteries, pumped hydro, etc). Each will have different sweet spots; cost vs reaction time vs capacity vs efficiency.
Try not to dismiss a technology just because it's not the whole solution. Nothing ever is. They all contribute a part to the big picture.
Compared to what?
I was thinking of lithium or sodium ion battery storage
It would take 460 Tesla Megapack 2 XLs to be the same capacity as this. The biggest deployment so far of those is about 200 Megapacks 1 giving 450MWh capacity vs 1,800MWh for this.
The lithium batteries can supply the same power (300MW) and cost $160M. This cost $207M, so quite a lot cheaper given 4x the capacity.