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A comment on 4-hour battery storage is cheaper to install than gas turbines all across globe. Parent comment

Re:4-hour battery storage is cheaper to install than gas tur... by thephyber on Thursday October 08, 2026 @02:29PM (#50009906)
Your parent wasn't talking about prime arable land, they were talking about city land.

The point is the electric delivery problem is much cheaper if the power generation and the power delivery both happen within the same substation (eg in the same neighborhood). If the generation happens in rural Scotland but the consumption happens in London, then all of the transmission needs to be upgraded. The point of your parent's comment was to describe a trick to minimize additional transmission costs/development.

And London area land does cost, even if it is just borrowing a vacant building's rooftop.

I don't necessarily agree with your parent's comment, but I don't agree with your comment either.

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Re:4-hour battery storage is cheaper to install than gas tur... by iso1631 on Friday October 09, 2026 @12:01PM (#50022463)
Except the worst case demand has to be catered for -- overcast horrendous rain in winter with local solar producing near nothing yet local demand (EV, Oven, Heating, Shower) all running.

You don't get a benefit of reducing peak demand from on-building solar, so you can't do with smaller substations.

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Re:4-hour battery storage is cheaper to install than gas tur... by thephyber on Sunday October 11, 2026 @08:03AM (#50042346)
I don't know why you're replying to my comment. That comment was only clarifying the parent's conflation of the cost of city land and the cost of cheap arable land.

I don't think local solar is a solution in foggy / cold UK. I'm not going to defend it.

[ Parent | on HN ]