Thread: Grid can go 75% renewable

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Exactly! And similar issues with a lot of gas production - most gas comes out of the ground mixed with a bit of water, and goes via a short pipe into a separator. No need to worry about that short pipe blocking with ice - "it never gets cold enough for that in Texas!" Same story with a lot of houses that not only lost power, but also lost water when their pipes froze and burst, flooding the house when the temperature got up a bit.

not sure about the rest of australia but same thing can happen here in SA

Most places where it is a recognised risk take precautions such as lagging exposed pipes. It is rare for it to happen here - I have had one frozen pipe, once in 26 years.

Well the big Vic battery isn’t so happy at the moment.

Originally Posted by Tombie

Well the big Vic battery isn’t so happy at the moment.

It's a hot time in the old town tonight. That might set back commissioning a few weeks.
I'll look forward to the forensic report and lessons learned. Without mistakes we have little to learn....

it wasnt even connected 24hours.
maybe they thought they were building a thermal plant?

Got it "under control".

Firefighters bring large battery fire near Geelong under control | CFA News & Media

Having a look at the site and infrastructure, one doesn't imagine it's going to be a massive job to replace the trashed module. It'll be interesting to see how it unfolds.

I read somewhere several months ago that fire authorities were demanding that building standards be changed so that Tesla batteries had to be in a separate structure to a house because of this danger.

Has anyone heard any more on this issue. In the USA they seem to be placed on garage walls . Is it the same here?
Maybe there will be a new look at the issue after this.
Regards PhilipA

I did consider lithium batteries for work 10 ish years ago. I went another way as the:
1-Zero brick issue- if they got to real zero SOC they are broken beyond repair.
2-The Fire risk. Not huge but IF or when something goes wrong when charging the thermal issues with the current lithium liquid catalyst version is very well know and has been since some went up on airplanes a decades ago now. Big or small they can bite
A " iPhone caused a small fire onboard a British Airways Boeing 787-9 as it was descending towards London Heathrow Airport. The UK’s Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAI today released a report into the incident. Thankfully nobody was injured, and the aircraft wasn’t damaged. "

Some of the people at Redflow flow batteries where quick to point out flow batteries are not flammable went the Geelong battery went up in smoke for three days. Smug mug smile for me. The news report the fire fighters put it out was funny. They let it burn itself out as they cannot put it out!


Like flow batteries, solid state catalyst lithium batteries which are not a fire risk I hear. They will change so many things about how we think about batteries and may be here at a large scale in the next 3 years. I wonder how many millions of dollars the Geelong one cost?