Energy storage including short duration and seasonal technologies ranging from lithium batteries to hydrogen could help mitigate the impacts of negative power prices in Europe, an analyst has said.
The day ahead price of power in Europe went below zero for an increasing amount of time in the first nine months of 2020, more than doubling from 2019. On average, power prices in Europe went negative 0.8% of the period studied by power market data analysis company EnAppSys.
Belgium saw prices of €-115.31/MWh on 13 April and Germany saw prices of €-83.94/MWh for eight hours on 21 April. Countries with high wind demand were particularly affected, with EnAppSys pointing to Ireland, Germany and Denmark as examples.
Ireland – which includes both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland – saw 36% of its overall energy demand covered by wind generation and negative prices for 4.2% of the time, significantly higher than the European average.
Markets became “much more volatile” in 2020, according to Alena Nispel, business analyst at EnAppSys, due to the lower demand during COVID-19 lockdowns, higher volumes of renewables and increasing interconnection between markets.
Nispel said that battery storage could “reduce these impacts – at least as far as it is economically sensible to do so”. Colleague Rob Lalor, a senior analyst with EnAppSys, said that as as more renewables come onto the grid, increasing volatility, battery storage can shift “large volumes” of wind or solar away from peak output into other periods of the day by charging during peak periods and discharging later on.
“There are economic limits imposed upon storage based on economic return per storage cycle and number of cycles/usages per year,” Lalor said.
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