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I thought it was all canned due to lack of funding... but I see it is still an outside chance of being built... I did see though, that due to only two tides a day, it'll only produce power for 14hrs a day... lets hope we can re-work the tides to coincide with Coronation Street and kettles going on !
Large scale battery storage is definitely part of the solution... but again, we're many many years away from this.
As the Swansea project stands, there are a number of large commercial consumers who have indicated a willingness to commit to a supply agreement; work is on-going to gain adequate commitments for funding to than be made available ....the project has changed from one seeking state funding to one seeking commercial funding, which could be regarded as a better outcome - if it can generate electricity at competitive enough rates to attract enough large consumers that it can gain funding, it's more likely to be successful. Tidal Lagoon Power hopes to have adequate commitments in place by the end of this year in order to move forward. Based on what I've read on the subject I'd say that 'outside chance' significantly underestimates the current position but we'll clearly see how it all plays out.
Lagoons generate as the tide flows in and as it flows out - there are four 2.5 hour generation gaps per 24 hour cycle, the timing of those being on predictable tidal cycle of course.
Differing generation systems can't be looked at in isolation - they work as a whole - like wind and solar, tidal lagoons would work in tandem with types of generation which can easily be switched in and out, as needed - such as pumped storage and gas turbines. Longer term, storage technologies will likely replace gas turbines but there's nothing to say that gas turbines can't be retained on a standby basis. The telly isn't going to go off just because a tidal lagoon is at a generating lull or the wind isn't blowing - no one would design a system which allowed that to happen.
As for energy storage, as I noted earlier, 'molten salts' thermal storage systems are already in operation - those retain heat in the form of 'molten salts' ...as the name suggests. The heat can be used for heating or to generate steam in order to drive steam turbine generators. Large scale battery storage is here now! In December 2017 Tesla commissioned a 100MW battery storage plant near to Jamestown, north of Adelaide, in Australia. That system can fully supply 30,000 homes for around an hour ...but it's intended to stabilise the supply from a wind farm and other sources, rather than work in isolation. Similar but smaller systems are installed in Southern California, Hawaii, New Zealand, here in the UK and on several Pacific islands. When it comes to battery storage, I suspect that some domestic level storage might become common in the future ....there as been some discussion about using people's own electric vehicles for this purpose but I'm not convinced about the practicality of that.
Anyway, this has become a rather lengthy and detailed side discussion ....it's something I tend to follow closely.