Two years of simulations show that very close to 100% renewable electricity is affordable and feasible for Australia’s main grid, using just a few hours of battery storage.
Batteries were a stopgap until we worked out something better. This plant gets 70% efficiency and more than enough energy storage by refrigerating a cold block, then using stored waste heat + the cold block to create a temperature differential, creating steam (in a closed loop, don’t need a big water supply) to spin a turbine that generates power when the sun goes down. Absolutely genius, already deployed and operating and yet nobody is talking about it.
Check this out: https://raygen.com/projects/raygen-power-plant#resources
Batteries were a stopgap until we worked out something better. This plant gets 70% efficiency and more than enough energy storage by refrigerating a cold block, then using stored waste heat + the cold block to create a temperature differential, creating steam (in a closed loop, don’t need a big water supply) to spin a turbine that generates power when the sun goes down. Absolutely genius, already deployed and operating and yet nobody is talking about it.
What’s the advantage of that solution over existing solutions like heating molten salts?
i haven’t read about your link yet, but as for storage, the study states
so the majority of the energy is used without being stored, and having the round trip losses.
… now back to reading ray-gen