Batteries are deployed quickly, but high-capacity grid connections can take a decade in the planning phase alone. Everyone wants one, and NIMBYs are quick to oppose them. Locating at a decommissioned nuclear plant is a great solution avoiding this issue

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pjc50 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yup. Another good option is co-locating with renewables. In Scotland, there's several BESS projects that are being built on the north/renewable side of a big grid bottleneck between Scotland and England, because the grid upgrades take a long time.

(maps https://www.spenergynetworks.co.uk/pages/cross_border_projec... - it's an odd area, mostly beautiful in that stark empty way a lot of Scotland is, but there's really not a lot of human use already there apart from marginal sheep farming because the land is too steep to till.)

	▲	eigenspace 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		This installation is actually also co-located with renewables: > It cooperates with a 53-hectare ground-mounted PV system operated by Solizer in direct proximity, which is supposed to deliver a peak output of 72 MW (MWp). Due to changes in tender conditions, large solar power projects and battery storage systems are increasingly being planned together. ___________ As obliquely referenced with the "changes in tender conditions", solar overproduction now causes negative midday electricity prices on a near daily basis in Germany from April through to October so long as it's not super cloudy. Therefore, anyone with a solar installation that doesn't get a special constant feed-in rate for their electricity (no longer available for commercial entities) would actually pay money to feed their solar into the grid. Therefore it's absolutely vital for new solar in Germany to have batteries on-site so they can sell later in the day, otherwise they're simply unprofitable.

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joe_mamba 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> and NIMBYs are quick to oppose them

I have a solution: higher energy prices for those opposing NIMBYs and cheaper for YIMBYs .

So many issues in politics would be solved if the voters of certain policies were the only ones affected by them instead of writing cheques everyone else has to cash.

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panick21_ 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Turning the nuclear plant back on would have been even better. And then putting a battery next to it would have been even better then that.

With batteries one could argue building them in a more distributed way might make more sense for overall resiliancy.

A fleet of like 70 nuclear plants at maybe 50 location could likely power all of Germany. For batteries you would likely go to 100 to 1000s of locations.

But that said, using the existing connections in some places does make sense.

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jagermo 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

No. the battery storage will deliver more power than the plant.

But, there are other issues: Atomic power keeps rising in cost. The plant was decomissioned and to turn it back on, you would basically have to rebuild it from the ground up - with people and knowledge that does not exist. Also, you would need the fuel from some place - as with oil and gas, you are depended on that place, since you can't easily switch uranium.

We would need about 55 power plants in Germany. At its height, Germany had 38 plants, all of that trash is still not solved. And we are not even thinking about the lawsuits that the reactivation or building of new plants would entail. People are suing against solar farms, what do you think a Nimby would be triggered by a nuclear plant?

In addition, none of these plants can be insured, all the risk is with the tax payer. As russia currently shows, you are also creating about 50 targets that to destroy a country. You don't even have to send a rocket, a few drones with grenades will make sure the plant has to shut down.

Personally, I do not want them. I remember Tchernobyl and the fallout afterwards. We have alternatives, like these battery storages, and can use water, wind, solar and hydrogen to not create potential nuclear issues, i am fine with that.

< For batteries you would likely go to 100 to 1000s of locations.

Yes, ideally de-centralized and build where power is generated. A battery park can be set up almost anywhere, a power plant not so much.

Nevertheless, I like the idea of using these old plant sites for storage, they have pretty good connections to the grid, so it makes a lot of sense. Can't use that space for anything else, really.

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joe_mamba 4 hours ago | parent [-]

>all of that trash is still not solved.

How did UK and France solve it? Just ask them and do what they did?

> People are suing against solar farms, what do you think a Nimby would be triggered by a nuclear plant?

Simple. You make it against the law to sue a giant energy projects because energy is a national/existential issue like defense. There, problem solved.

Why do we act like there isn't a switch we can flip when needed to make our problems go away, and instead need to succumb to the whims of a few anti-intellectual nimbys who got brainwashed by anti nuclear propaganda, because "they can sue"?

>Personally, I do not want them. I remember Tchernobyl and the fallout afterwards

Do you also remember the other power plants in the world that didn't blow up?

Imagine if prehistoric humans stopped using fire because someone burned his house down once and "they remember the fire".

	▲	M95D an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> "they can sue" That's one of the features of a free country. What you propose is close to tyranny.

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ndr42 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why do you think it would be better or even possible to turn on an old nuclear power plant that is 4 years out of service and decommissioned (10 years left until the decommission is finished)?

Even if it is possible I have no confidence that Germany is able to come up with a solution to nuclear waste. The federal states that are proponents of nuclear energy like Bavaria refuse to even examine whether a nuclear waste repository could be located in their territory.

Not that far away from the former nuclear plant in the article the "Schacht Asse" [1] is located where the problem of nuclear waste im Germany becomes painfully obvious.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine

Edit: Grammar

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panick21_ 5 hours ago | parent [-]

The plant was not broken and it could absolutly be turned back on. They would just need to catch up on some delayed maintance.

Nuclear 'waste' has plenty of solution and all these 'but the repositoy' is just what anti-nuclear people use to scare people that don't know any better. Nuclear 'waste' doesn't need a repository, its perfectly fine to just store it above ground for as long as needed.

The Asse mine is completely irrelevant to the discussion as this is not how anything is done anymore for a long time and many countries have proven capable of managing waste fine, including Germany since then. The fact is, basically nobody has died from waste managment.

Asse risk is overplayed, even if nothing was done, the likelyhood is that in the next few 100 years nobody would die because of it it. They are removing it because maybe in a few 100 years there could be a slight impact on ground water. Even the is if you make some worst case assumtions. Spend the billions it would cost to empty the mine on gold and put it into the ground. People in few 100 years can dig up and spend on what they think is their most important problem. In the incredibly unlikely case that its radiation, they can use their technology to do what they think is best.

	▲	ndr42 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Again: How can it be turned on, when it is actively decommissioned ("Rückbau") since 2024? What are the costs (without omitting storing radiactive waste securely[1] above ground for some thousand years ? Are they less than batteries + solar + wind? [1] think terrorism, drone strikes, ...

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egr 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why would it have been better to turn back on the nuclear plant? What would be the specific advantages of nuclear plant back in operation versus battery project realisation? Or would battery + reactivated plant be the best overall solution?

	▲	panick21_ 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Or would battery + reactivated plant be the best overall solution? Given how much renewable is already deployed, battery makes sense. So I think both would be best.

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triceratops 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Turning the nuclear plant back on would have been even better

Sure if it's the same price.

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close04 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> And then putting a battery next to it would have been even better then that.

An NPP doesn't benefit that much from a battery. They're generally used to provide base load which fits their constant supply profile. Peaks and quick variations can be supplied by more flexible renewables together with a battery to buffer it.

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ZeroGravitas 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Pumped hydro has been built to work with Nuclear in the past precisely because the flat output of nuclear doesn't actually fit the shape of demand.

Of course these days, you can feed the pumped hydro or batteries with much cheaper renewables.

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close04 4 hours ago | parent [-]

If your NPP output is lower than the base load (I think this is almost always the case) then the NPP will always feed all its constant production to the grid to satisfy the constant base load. If you have a battery and what to put it somewhere with the most impact, it should go next to the variable power supply, where it makes sense to store and supply later. That's what batteries do, store what you can't use now to supply it when you can't produce.

Look at this picture [0] of the German grid. Same for France [1]. Why would you store any of the nuclear output when all of it is guaranteed to be absorbed by the grid real time, day or night? You can, but it doesn't make economic sense. Batteries shine where they can smoothen peaks, like solar and wind.

The big reason to put batteries next to NPPs is the existing grid infrastructure. You can't supply GW-level power from just anywhere. It's like building a large warehouse next to a major transportation route.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load#/media/File:Renewabl...

[1] https://www.rte-france.com/en/data-publications/eco2mix/powe...

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bryanlarsen 4 hours ago | parent [-]

There are lots of times and places where renewable production is higher than demand. When that's the case "the NPP will always feed all its constant production to the grid to satisfy the constant base load." increases costs.

	▲	close04 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> increases costs “Increases costs” for who, the producer, the consumer, the distributor? If you have data on that I’d love to read about it. I think the article mentions that recently batteries are always together with renewables. The reason this battery was built there has nothing to do with the NPP but with the proximity to the already developed power distribution infrastructure. You can assume they’ve all done the math when choosing to not build batteries next to working NPPs.