https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas
Methanation and methane storage is at the same level as Hydorgen storage in optimal models. This here has 500 citations:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1801.05290.pdf
They also cite something I haven't personally read, but which goes back all the way to 2009, again with hundreds of citations:
M. Sterner, Bioenergy and renewable power methane in integrated 100% renewable energy systems, Ph.D. thesis, Kassel University (2009).
Of course as the roundtrip efficiency is better, its preferable to store Hydrogen directly if that is feasible (and this is why a pure electricity sector optimization model will never show methane).
But fundamentally the idea has been for a long time to run Gas power plants on carbon neural gases. This is an explicit point in the EU Taxonomy of labeling Gas investments as green. They can only do so if they retrofitted to running on carbon free gas from 2035 onwards. Siemens is selling their stuff as H2-ready for that exact reason [1].
Pumped hydro can not be meaningfully expanded, its only a small part of the overall solution.
[1] https://www.siemens-energy.com/global/en/news/magazine/2022/...
Both systems have their flaws: the first one is clearly detrimental to democratic oversight, and may sometimes cause authoritarian problems, where administrators don't see or overlook problems caused to individuals.
On the other hand, political-first systems tend to kill unviable or uncompetitive projects way too late, because implementer signal is attenuated.
A good example of this is the development of nuclear power in France and the UK in the 60's: both countries had a local reactor project which was politically favored. France, where engineers had a strong influence on politicians, killed it quickly and bought US licenses for its program. The UK on the other hand moved on with their local graphite-gas reactors, which proved much harder to implement, and hampered their program.
All of this to point out that power2gas is currently at a very early stage, and since this program is dominated by political will, it's extremely hard to know how well it will work, let alone have a good idea of the economic figures.
Maybe it will work. I hope so. But it's certainly not a done deal, and it's extremely unsettling to see our countries' energy safety be debated based on a few scientific papers or a planned demonstrator by people that won't have to actually implement it.
It's not a very large point, and I believe I fleshed it enough already.
> so if large scale storage failure leading to undersupply is your worry (as you indicate elsewhere)
I don't remember mentioning that. If we work under the hypothesis that we have large scale power supply available at reasonable cost, then yes, there is no reason not to use them. Currently, pumpable hydro is the closest we have, and it's more or less capped out here.
> But again, why? Storage backed energy grids are already a reality: we were running Europe on stored Gas for much of the winter.
This is the first time I hear someone mention gas as storage, in the context of a power grid. If you forget emissions, then, I guess, why not. But if you forget emissions, 90% of the public discourse on the european power grid stops making sense. To date, I have knowledge of no large-scale environmentally viable way to produce this fuel in a renewable way.
> You insinuate (without clarifying) that markets arent working, yet we have fantastically reliable grids in Europe.
The grid was already working well before the introduction of markets. Since then, in my neck of the woods we have seen a complete failure of investment in the production side. In other countries that already had a built grid like us, renewal was only possible with heavy public subsidies.
I would welcome an explanation on what you believe markets brought to an already working grid.