Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4
I'm assuming none of you who think it's a good idea to "use a battery bank" even tried to figure how much battery it would take to supply even a portion of 350kw?
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I'm assuming you already know about "demand charges" that electric companies levy on industrial consumers, but some people don't...
Electricity supply has to meet electricity demand, at all times. As mentioned above, the demand and supply has a certain amount of "inertia", which is to say that electric companies can't just supply more electricity instantly. Fortunately, demand for electricity also tends to have a certain amount of inertia.
If demand for electricity spikes faster than the utility can supply it, you get a brownout. If the opposite occurs, and you get a sudden drop in demand, the excess power must be instantly absorbed by something, often times dumped to ground.
It costs more to not only supply the high demand infrastructure for these chargers, but the overall balance of supply/demand on the grid suffers as well. This is why demand charges are billed to industrial consumers.
Using batteries smooths out these substantial demand peaks by acting as a buffer to the grid. The batteries can supply peak demands while presenting itself as a more steady draw on the grid. There is a tradeoff in the cost of the batteries (one time cost) vs the cost of installing higher demand capacity from the grid (monthly recurring cost).