RE: Does anybody23 Feb 2019 03:11
Brightonpier123 - it is certainly feasible from a technological point of view - just the problem is that Eskom doesn't have any way to encourage or incentivise such an arrangement as yet. Remember up until about 12 months ago Eskom were actively lobbying to block the latest renewable energy REIPP projects courtesy of having a couple of Zuma's numpties installed in charge.
Once eskom is successfully split up then the transmission arm will be able to procure generation services from whoever they like, not just the old and coal generation part of eskom - there will actually be a generation market established and it will be much easier for Renewable Energy generators to participate in bidding rounds to build generation capacity. In some parts of the world small scale renewables projects, down to the level of a single house, projects were encouraged via the provision of feed-in-tariffs (FIT), which allowed excess energy to be sold back to the grid. Larger scale projects such a complete wind or PV farms were generally funded via a different mechanism - PPA, Power Purchase Agreements, which were necessarily long term to be able to secure the necessary capital funding. Whether a battery which bought electricity when cheap then sold (some of) it back when expensive would qualify under a FIT scheme would depend very much on the territory, but I suspect that SA doesn't have any FIT scheme at all at present.
In principle the same market approach will go for other ancillary services to the transmission arm - such as short term energy storage - in the UK there were competitive bidding rounds established to provide Firm Frequency Response (FFR - https://www.nationalgrideso.com/balancing-services/frequency-response-services/firm-frequency-response-ffr ) services. This is basically short term energy storage/generation that can be used to smooth out the peaks and troughs in energy supply at different times and in different parts of the grid. These are generally less than 1 hour capacity batteries and services required so up until now lithium-ion has had a fair crack of the whip in the UK. However things all changed when the regulators and BEIS realised that this was undermining the opportunities for longer term energy storage (eg 4 hr that could be useful for peak shifting) and so they introduced the capacity derating rules which knocked 1hr battery Power ratings down by about 2/3rds when compared with 4hr batteries. The Lithium-ion boys didn't like this but tough luck it has stuck.
In principle with a 4hr battery which operates in a very linear fashion, such as a VRFB it is possible to 'stack' short term energy firming services such as FFR, together with medium term such as secondary and tertiary regulation (https://www.e-education.psu.edu/ebf483/node/705) with long-term, such as peak-shifting and earn dollar providing services to all these markets. I suspect though it will be a few years before eskom can establish such sophisticated external markets.
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