Hasbeen, your suggestion is always possible but it is such big money
surely they would take financial advise first. hmmm maybe not.
MAYBE THEY REALLY ARE THAT STUPID !

Hi Bazz,

$150 US per mwh is a battery storage cost I often see mentioned. The point of the calculation was not accuracy but to demonstrate that even a calculation for solar with battery backup using generous price assumptions was still about five times the cost of long term nuclear power. The following is an article on current and projected costs of battery storage:

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy21osti/79236.pdf

Fester, I have just had a quick read of that paper to which you referred.
They complicated for me by referring to 4 hour batteries.
Looking at the table at the end they are working on around $200 per Kwatt/hr.
That seems to be much more than I had seen for that Sth Aus battery.
So much so I think I must have misunderstood something.
Perhaps the price has to be divided bt 4.

I do not know why they are considering lithium batteries.
Nickle Iron batteries are much more suitable for fixed location
long life service.
They can be serviced annually and restored as new. They are rugged
can be short circuited without permanent damage and can be left
unused for years.
They are much larger but that is not a problem on wind & solar farms.
A lot cheaper also.

Thanks Bazz,

Whenever I start doing cost calculations for 24/7 renewables I quickly stop when I realise that they are way above the lcoe of conventional generation.

If you only need intermittent power or are remote then I think solar plus storage a great idea. I have also heard of the concept of local domestic grids, whereby a number of households share a battery charged by rooftop solar.

I appreciate you mentioning the nickel iron battery.

Cheers

https://micropowergrids.com.au/_Energy_Storage/Nickel_Iron_(NiFe)/index.html

Oh, and you could source the batteries more cheaply if you were happy to arrange shipping, e.g.

http://hengmingbattery.en.made-in-china.com/product/HFKQmiDdhzkJ/China-Edison-Nickel-Iron-Battery-for-Solar-12V-24V-1200ah-Ni-Fe-Battery.html

Great if you want to play around with such things, and I may yet go on that adventure for the fun of it, but if the government were to pursue conventional and proven power supply options there would be little incentive for me.