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.
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
What’s the advantage of that solution over existing solutions like heating molten salts?