129MWhr Battery Doing its Job Down Under.

"It will allow demand to be smoothed". OK what is the maximum charge and discharge rate? Can all the output be got in 5 minutes? Can it be recharged in the next 5 minutes? Of course not! It is nothing like the much larger pumped storage systems, which are a significant proportion of the system size (although still fairly small). If my system is say 10GW with a generator size of 500MW each, I need to be able to make up one of them as it is started. If a OCGT perhaps a few minutes. This battery probably cannot do this, at least not a large generator. It may be able to stabilise a smallish windfarm say 50MW max capacity, by watching out for those annoying wind variations over the hours, but a city going off under a fault, and being reconnected is probably well beyond its capacity. In reality it is not demand which needs to be smoothed but the ability to generate to match demand which is slightly different, that ability from wind is very variable, even with a biggish battery. A battery with a capacity of 1% of demand for an hour is certainly sailing very close indeed to grid failure.

"It will allow demand to be smoothed". OK what is the maximum charge and discharge rate? Can all the output be got in 5 minutes? Can it be recharged in the next 5 minutes? Of course not! It is nothing like the much larger pumped storage systems, which are a significant proportion of the system size (although still fairly small). If my system is say 10GW with a generator size of 500MW each, I need to be able to make up one of them as it is started. If a OCGT perhaps a few minutes. This battery probably cannot do this, at least not a large generator. It may be able to stabilise a smallish windfarm say 50MW max capacity, by watching out for those annoying wind variations over the hours, but a city going off under a fault, and being reconnected is probably well beyond its capacity. In reality it is not demand which needs to be smoothed but the ability to generate to match demand which is slightly different, that ability from wind is very variable, even with a biggish battery. A battery with a capacity of 1% of demand for an hour is certainly sailing very close indeed to grid failure.