Didn't someone just say solar and wind are surge power generation? So how much solar is going to be available at night if there isn't much storage capacity? Need to spend money on that storage first. And wind doesn't necessarily blow during times people are charging their car. So have to depend on coal/nuclear to charge car, so that EV is still coal powered.
Wind is intermittent, although somewhat predictable for at least a few hours in advance. It's straightforward for the grid to signal (eg. voltage/frequency) what the power availability will be like, so that charging can be optimised.
Solar by definition, only works during the day. But that is good because the daytime demand and peak demand occur then.
In terms of electricity generation profile, there is so much more potential with solar because of all the technological developments available with semi-conductors and because there are a lot more sites available for solar than wind.
So if most of the electricity is generated during the daytime, it just makes more sense to charge electric vehicles during the daytime as well.
All sorts of new battery storage technologies are also being developed. For example, vanadium flow batteries have just started commercial deployment for industrial scale grid usage and should displace lithium ion batteries in this area.
So we can still expect battery storage costs to continue dropping rapidly.
Grid-Scale Battery Storage Is Already Viable In Australia
That means that large-scale battery storage is already viable in large parts of Australia. In South Australia, it is offering internal rates of return of around 30 per cent (even without new market rules that will further encourage them), and in Queensland they are also profitable due to that state’s price volatility. NSW and Victoria will follow soon enough.
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