Talk:Grid energy storage/GA1

GA Review

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Nominator: Femke (talk · contribs) 15:55, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 09:48, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Comments

What a good and timely article. It's in the main very well-written and fully-cited, so my comments will mostly be few and minor. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:48, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

• The lead covers the engineering reasonably well, though it does not mention some of the 'Forms' at all (it ought to mention each of the 5 of them at least briefly). Economics is barely mentioned (indirectly in the first paragraph). The questions of cost and market and system value need to be mentioned in the lead.

• File:Grid service batteries (IEA 2024).png: "Figure 1.9 Battery storage in power systems" - the embedded caption should be cropped off (CropTool on the left-hand menu on Commons) as irrelevant and indeed wrong in this context.

• File:Grid service batteries (IEA 2024).png needs to have its source cited in the caption.

• File:Grid service batteries (IEA 2024).png contains many text labels which are not discussed in the text. For example "Variable charge reduction" is nothing to do with capacitance... and "Distribution upgrade deferral" is nothing to do with dividends... And I doubt most readers will have an earthly what a "Ramping reserve" is, or why "ancillary services" (sounds like minor extras, no?) is glossed as "essential grid services". Basically, if we're going to use somebody else's table, we ought to be explaining all of it in the text, or better, it should be so clear and explanatory that it illuminates the text. I think it's actually slightly too power-gen business technical for the article's purposes (a general introduction), which is why the terms are a bit difficult for the average reader. It might be best to replace the image with an actual table: the text will be bigger and the cells can be fewer and simpler.

• The fascinating 1917 image File:Light-plant-Fig1198-Page989-Ch45-Hawkins-Electrical-Guide.png and its ref make it clear that there is a century of history to this topic. This should be covered in a sentence or two, perhaps at the top of 'Forms' in a subsection 'History'.

• Mind you, Pumped-storage hydroelectricity#History goes back to 1907 as well, while Compressed-air energy storage#History goes back to 1870, so 'History' should perhaps be a short freestanding chapter before 'Forms', covering battery, hydro, and compressed air (at least). There's no shortage of refs in those articles.

• There are some infelicities in the text. For instance "Providing short-term flexibility is a key role for energy storage." could be rewritten as "Short-term flexibility is a key goal for energy storage." or "One of the key roles for energy storage is to provide short-term flexibility." To give just one more example at random, " For instance, consumers may have cheaper night tariffs to encourage them to use electricity at night. Industry and commercial consumers can also change their demand to meet supply." treats "consumers" firstly as domestic consumers and then as "all consumers including commercial", not ideal; this would be better as two sentences.

Images

• Not a GAN issue, but File:Grid energy storage.png needs to be redrawn as an SVG with larger text labels. It might help in the meantime to make it a bit bigger.

• File:Grid storage energy flow.png, a very helpful diagram, should really be an SVG as well. Again, it'd be more readable a bit bigger.

  I find it a difficult one to understand, to don't want to sink time in that diagram. Have decided to make a new one from scratch, loosely inspired by [1] and [2]. Will take a bit, as my Inkscape skills are rusty. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 15:02, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

  I find the easiest way is Powerpoint, export as SVG ... and the result is without the SVG errors that Inkscape creates ... Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:22, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

  Attempt 1:

  

  Example energy production showing periods of oversupply and battery charging and periods of battery discharging

  Not sure I understand that one. What's the solid line? If it's demand, why are there different coloured areas above it? I found the existing diagram easier...

• File:Grid service batteries (IEA 2024).png would be better as an SVG or actually as a table, the text is all a lot smaller than the article's normal text (the guideline is not to use anything where the text is less than 85% of normal). Again, a temporary kludge would be to make it larger, no reason why not.

• File:Battery-cost-learning-curve.png works pretty well as a PNG even though the text labels are minuscule, as the curve tells the story visually. Still it ought to be an SVG really, and the absurd amount of text, some of it so pale grey as to be practically invisible, should be reduced severely.

• All the images are on Commons and plausibly licensed.

• The NASA flywheel image should be |upright.

Sources

• All the academic paper refs I checked are fine and indeed well-chosen. I'll take the book refs AGF; they all appear to be highly suitable for the topic.

Summary

• This is an excellent article. The main issue is simply that the lead needs to cover the parts of the article a little more thoroughly, and a bit of history is needed. Then it'll be a worthy GA. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:20, 24 November 2024 (UTC)