This website made me reconsider if 99.9999% SLA and always online is really that important for lots of websites. I used to self-host my own server in my own apartment, but gave up on that after my internet provider had their first major outage that lasted almost a week. Also I didn’t want to worry about the fire hazard, or the server going down when I was traveling etc.
But a solar powered server seems interesting, if the batteries could be made fire safe.
“Hey look everyone! We never heard of grid scale batteries!”
This website is like 10 years old from memory, well before grid-scale batteries were widespread (well they still aren’t in many countries).
Right, and I’m older than the Sony Walkman and that’s why I never heard about “internet”.
Grid scale batteries are only a solution for transients, if that. Actual energy storage needs to be scalable like pumped storage hydro which accounts for 95% of all storage capacity worldwide.
Scaling means you buy 2 instead of one.
That is literally the opposite definition to scalable. Scalable things don’t require twice the resources for twice the capacity.
Buy two instead of one is exactly the worst case scalability you can have.
95% of the world grid storage capacity is pumped storage hydro and batteries will literally never be able to compete because water is the cheapest energy storage medium we could possibly have at grid scale. North America was the world leader on PSH in the 1970-2000 but now China is eating our lunch and our governments no longer have the ability to start real infrastructure projects because of crony capitalism.
I can’t believe we’re watching China become the world leader in renewables while we pretend like batteries are a smart way of storing GWhs of power because that’s the most profitable solution to the private sector.
Enjoy your water.