this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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Technology
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That's a good article with lots of context on the issue.
However one thing is missing: round trip efficiency figures. The whole process of turning electricity into heat, then back into electricity, is probably low efficiency.
There is discussion of directly using heat for industrial processes or heating. That's probably a better use of energy since it avoid some energy conversation losses.
Yeah, large-scale heat power plants have an efficiency of maybe 55%. Small scale heat engines are pretty hard to make work better than 30%.
Storage with solid weights is probably competitive with this for electricity. Hopefully someone figures out a low-cost grid battery.
On the other hand, if you're running an electrically-heated concrete furnace, this is great. You heat when electricity is plentiful and coast for the rest of the time.
The thing is that efficency doesn't matter too much if this energy used is from intermittent sources like wind or solar and if there is too much energy at this moment and not everything can be used. So it is better to safe energy at lower efficiency than not saving anything at all.