this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2024
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Anon questions our energy sector (slrpnk.net)
submitted 10 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

Uptime is calculated by kWh, I.E How many kilowatts of power you can produce for how many hours.

That's stored energy. For example: a 5 MWh battery can provide 5 hours of power at 1MW. It can provide 2 hours of power, at 2.5MW. It can provide 1 hour of power, at 5MW.

The max amount of power a battery can deliver (MW), and the max amount of storage (MWh) are independant characteristics. The first is usually limited by cooling and transfo physics. The latter usually by the amount of lithium/zinc/redox of choice.

What uptime refers to is: how many hours a year, does supply match or outperform demand, compared to the number of hours a year.

So to match a 1gw nuclear plant, you need around 12gw of of storage, and 13gw of production.

This is incorrect. Under the assumption that nuclear plants are steady state, (which they aren't).

To match a 1GW nuclear plant, for one day, you need a fully charged 1GW battery, with a capacity of 24GWh.

Are you sure you understand the difference between W and Wh?

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

My math assumes the sun shines for 12 hours/day, so you don't need 24 hours storage since you produce power for 12 of it.

My math is drastically off though. I ignored the 12 hrs time line when talking about generation.

Assuming that 12 hours of sun, you just need 2Gw solar production and 12Gw of battery to supply 1Gw during the day of solar, and 1Gw during the night of solar, to match a 1Gw nuclear plants output and "storage."

Seeing as those recent projects put that nuclear output at 17 bil dollars and a 14 year build timeline, and they put the solar equivalent at roughly 14 billion(2 billion for solar and 12 billion for storage) with a 2 - 6 year build timeline, nuclear cannot complete with current solar/battery tech, much less advancing solar/battery tech.