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Energy storage - will it power a renewable energy revolution?

Alex Coe — June 2011

Emerging Issue: Large-scale implementation of energy storage to support renewable energy generation appears to be taking off: the holy grail of renewable energy has been the ability to effectively store viable quantities of energy for resale at peak prices (rather than being a price taker) but, historically, investment has been confined to limited, proven technologies, such as pumped-storage hydroelectricity. The landscape is expected to change considerably in the next few years when a host of new storage options supported by US stimulus funding begin to emerge and, in turn, catalyse a portfolio of new energy storage demonstrations. These demonstrations will be key – a solid understanding of full-scale cost, reliability and implementation challenges for large-scale energy storage options is needed before any major investment will occur.

The raft of lab and even test case technologies waiting in the wings for cost and price to converge include the hydrogen chain, underground and above-ground compressed air and CO2 (CAES), heat storage and novel flywheel technology.

It nows seems that battery storage technologies will dominate the future landscape. The leaps in efficiency and the economies of scale now being realised in battery technology have placed it at the front of the technology pack, with previously novel applications such as massive battery farm concepts to support renewable energy generators, becoming economically viable. The first full-scale installation is now under way - a 36MW mega-battery project at the Notrees Windfarm in Texas, due to go live in 2012. This could herald a new era in renewable contribution to grid power. Although an experimental investment, it will nevertheless propel dry cell battery technology to the rank of fourth-largest capacity storage technology worldwide, overcoming operational issues associated with high temperature molten sodium-sulphur batteries used previously for grid storage applications. Other similar projects are in planning phases around the world, and new battery technologies continue to emerge (most recently, semi-solid flow cells utilising a liquid ‘slurry’ of charged electrolytes).

The highly-scalable nature of the battery approach will enable rapid implementation of gradually larger applications, with the potential to implement battery farms alongside all major renewable projects, including to store energy to dampen the natural ‘disturbance’ in wind farm output – provided it is cost competitive, including with alternative responsive generation assets like gas-fired peaking plant.

The impact on traditional energy suppliers and network managers will need to be understood, as will the economics of battery storage and the technical challenges of connection to the grid. In addition, a regulatory regime which supports efficient new entrants – without over-incentivising or allowing incumbents to operate a closed shop – is critical. But with companies like Redflow in Australia driving change, it is not unreasonable to expect a revolution in the market.

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