I have an EV which seems to keep the same charge for weeks at a time without topping it up but I hear that grid scale batteries have a lower storage duration than an EV battery. Why is this the case and what is the typical storage duration of a grid scale storage battery?
Edit/clarification:
I’ve read that grid scale storage only keeps charge for four hours, how and why is this the case if an EV battery can keep charge for weeks?
In: Engineering
Grid scale batteries are cycled daily, sometimes twice daily to cover the evening and early morning peaks in consumption – this is done because electricity is worth more during times of high demand and worth less during the middle of the night (when nobody uses it) and middle of the day when solar produces excess.
If you don’t cycle your grid batteries daily, they never pay themselves off – so the required storage duration is measured in hours.
Edit: it’s not that they can’t keep charge longer than 4 hours, they can keep charge just as long as EV batteries do. There is no financial benefit to storing electricity for weeks, so the discharge time is a measure of the quickest that they can discharge from full to empty.
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