| ▲ | tomp 2 days ago |
| These are cool ideas but there's always an asterisk. The issue here is: the "stored energy" isn't electricity, but heat. Converting heat into electricity is quite wasteful. |
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| ▲ | epistasis 2 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| It's not really an asterisk if it's right in the title and the name of the company, is it? |
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| ▲ | orev 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| They’re using the stored heat energy as heat, not converting it back to electricity. And if it’s very cheap, does it matter if the conversion is wasteful? |
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| ▲ | tomp 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I'm not saying it's bad, but it's clearly not a replacement for batteries, given its applicability is quite limited. The question is about conversion is, is it still cheap if you add a powerplant (i.e. converting heat into electricity) and have to maintain it (moving parts, in contrast to batteries). | | |
| ▲ | zahlman 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | As I understand it, this is meant as a supplement to batteries, so that batteries can do most of the intraday load shifting while thermal can store energy over longer durations. | |
| ▲ | pfdietz 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's explicitly not a replacement for batteries. Did you not read the article? It's a crucial complement for batteries. Batteries suck for seasonal storage. |
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