Energy generation has never been a single technology market. Gas, coal, nuclear, hydro, solar and wind all make a significant contribution to our global generation capacity, and each play different roles based on their specific characteristics.

For instance, nuclear provides low-carbon baseload, whilst gas generally meets more flexible, peaking requirements with a higher carbon cost. Renewables, once a high-priced subsidy-only option, are now considered to be a key low-cost and low carbon part of our future generating mix.

The energy storage market is no different. I don’t believe there will be a ‘one size fits all’ technology solution, given the wide variety of technical requirements and market designs that allow grids to operate effectively.

Could one energy storage technology technically perform every conceivable requirement? Yes, quite possibly, but specialisation in the market will deliver far more economically optimal solutions.

Approaching the roles that storage can play with a single technology would be like leaving your toolkit at home and turning up to a DIY job with just a hammer – it’s capable of a great many things, but it really isn’t the best tool to paint the bedroom with.

Differentiation will emerge as energy storage grows in future grid scenarios
Instead of a one-size-fits all situation, I believe the future will see a segmentation in the energy storage market, driven by myriad factors including; technology type, age, warranty limitations, control systems, financing structures and operating strategies. The technical and economic factors driving this segmentation will necessitate different storage products for different applications; once deployed, a further segmentation for dispatch will evolve.

We can see this today, for example within gas there are a wide range of solutions, from reciprocating engines to combined-cycle gas turbines (CCGTs). Selection amongst these competing solutions is made at the time of deployment based on the specific purpose they are intended to serve. During their operational lifetime, each generator is dispatched to meet market requirements at lowest cost. The same will be true for energy storage. Within a storage fleet you’re going to have older installations (based on earlier technologies) coming to the end of their life, competing in the same markets alongside newer systems, with different chemistries, warranties and operating strategies. It is easy to see how differentiation will emerge as energy storage grows in future grid scenarios.

Floridian utility Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) has penned a power purchase agreement with developer Origis Energy for a solar-plus-storage project in the state.

The Solar 6 large-scale solar project is claimed to be the first of its kind in GRU’s service area and will combine 50MW of solar PV with 12MW of energy storage.

It will be constructed by Origis Energy in Alachua County and is slated for completion in late 2022.

Ed Bielarski, general manager at GRU, said the project was the “next step forward” toward meeting a target of deriving 100% of its power from renewable sources by 2045, claiming the agreement to be an “all-around win for our customers, our city and the environment”.

The City of Gainesville approved a target of 100% power from renewables in 2018, with GRU developing its renewables portfolio as it progresses towards that goal. To date, its resources include the 103MW biomass-fired Deerhaven Renewable Generation Station, 3.6MW of landfill-gas fired units and 18.5MW of feed-in tariff accredited solar.

Additionally, it has approximately 9MW of customer-owned and net-metered solar currently connected to its distribution system.

“Solar plus storage on this scale will help Gainesville achieve its 100 percent renewable energy goal,” said Johan Vanhee, chief commercial officer and chief procurement officer at Origis Energy. “We are honored to bring cost effective power to GRU customers and applaud City leaders as they continue to model clean energy leadership in the Sunshine state.”

Origis Energy is also developing a 57.5MW solar farm in Mitchell County, Georgia, together with state utility Georgia Power.

In early 2019, the renewable energy developer completed a 50MW, 109-hectare PV project together with Reedy Creek Improvement District in Florida, to provide clean energy to the Walt Disney World Resort.

As a relatively rare and expensive heavy metal, cobalt serves as a vital but costly part of today’s lithium batteries, not just in terms of dollars but also for the environment and well-being of those tasked with mining it. A new battery design from the University of Texas at Austin may help address these issues, with the team demonstrating a new type of battery architecture that performs on par with conventional devices, while being entirely free of cobalt.

Due to its excellent conductivity and durability throughout charging cycles, cobalt has served as a key material in the cathode of lithium batteries since their inception, but it has come under fire lately due to the harmful effects of the related mining operations. These include exposing workers to dangerous levels of toxic metals, but also the degradation of natural landscapes and water supplies.

So there is considerable interest in sourcing alternatives, with some promising possibilities to emerge of late, including an experimental battery developed at IBM that uses materials sourced from saltwater instead.

The University of Texas at Austin team is throwing another candidate into the mix, having developed a new class of cathodes that don’t involve cobalt at all. Generally speaking, the cathode of a lithium battery is made from a mix of metal ions including cobalt, nickel and aluminum. Cobalt is the most expensive of these elements and can account for around half the materials cost of the entire battery.

“Cobalt is the least abundant and most expensive component in battery cathodes,” says study author Arumugam Manthiram. “And we are completely eliminating it.”

The team achieved this by tweaking the recipe to produce a cathode made of 89 percent nickel, with the rest formed from manganese and aluminum. The key, the researchers say, is that during the synthesis the ions of these different metals are distributed evenly across the cathode. This overcomes a key shortcoming with other designs, where the ions bunch up in places and degrade the performance of the battery.

As energy storage plays an increasingly important role in the power sector’s transition to cleaner and more distributed resources, DOE wants to make sure the U.S. remains at the forefront of the technology.

“The Energy Storage Grand Challenge leverages the unique, extensive expertise and capabilities of the Department of Energy and our National Labs to really push the envelope when it comes to developing next-generation energy storage,” Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said in a press release.

According to DOE, during Fiscal Years 2017-2019, it has invested over $1.2 billion in energy storage research and development, “establishing an agency-wide, long-term strategy.”

The House wants to accelerate such spending and on Monday the Appropriations Committee passed the Fiscal Year 2021 energy and water spending bill, which directs $1.3 billion for energy storage, including $500 million for “energy storage demonstration projects across a portfolio of technologies and approaches” and at least $770.5 million “for the manufacturing of advanced batteries and components.”

The focus of the Energy Storage Grand Challenge, DOE said, is “to create and sustain U.S. global leadership in energy storage utilization and exports, with a secure domestic manufacturing base and supply chain that is independent of foreign sources of critical materials.” All by 2030.

“The roadmap attempts to paint a comprehensive view of the energy storage landscape, opportunities, and challenges, and presents itself as taking an ecosystem approach, which RMI called for in last year’s Breakthrough Batteries report,” Rocky Mountain Institute Principal Charlie Bloch told Utility Dive via email, praising DOE’s overall effort.

“I appreciate that it does so with an eye toward being storage technology agnostic, as a key threat in the fast-moving space is that policies or regulations are drafted in such a way so as to lock-in Li-ion as the predominant technology when so many other options are still being explored and developed.” he continued.

“On the other hand, a key issue somewhat sidestepped by the roadmap is the fact that in order to develop a robust domestic market for innovation and manufacturing, the U.S. must also provide policy and regulatory demand-support signals … As written, the roadmap seems to strike more of a precautionary tone as it relates to policy, despite acknowledging the requirement for local demand,” he added.

The value of energy storage increases with growing shares of renewable energy on the grid, but the availability and cost of storage will determine how successful decarbonisation with renewables can be.

That’s one of the key takeaways of a new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Princeton University’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment (ACEE), supported by General Electric (GE). Researchers examined battery storage to determine the key drivers behind its present economic value, as well as the likely dynamics of what happens when deployment increases and what that implies for the long-term cost-effectiveness of energy storage.

As generation from variable renewable energy sources such as solar and wind increases its share of electricity supply, the economic value of storage rises, the study, published in the journal Applied Energy, found. However, as storage penetration increases, energy storage resources begin competing to provide the same set of grid services, resulting in a decline in the economic value of that storage.

According to the study’s Abstract, increasing the penetration of variable renewable energy “from 40% to 60% increases the value of storage, but only enough to make storage capacity up to 4% of peak demand cost-effective at current lithium-ion capital costs”. If capital costs of Li-ion batteries fall to US$150 per kWh for four-hour duration storage in future, that “cost-effective storage penetration range” increases to between 4% and 16%.

Value of storage still difficult to monetise, cost-effective long-duration remains overall goal

Co-author Jesse Jenkins tweeted out yesterday that a detailed electricity system planning model was used by the team. It looked at load and renewable energy profiles consistent to the US Northeast and southern regions, according to the Abstract. Jenkins, the report’s lead author Dharik Mallapragada and MIT postdoctoral associate Nestor Sepulveda, together found that at present, “the substitution of batteries for generation or transmission capacity is the primary source of storage value”.

Energy storage, or the use of batteries to absorb electricity from the grid when it is plentiful and discharge it when it is scarce, is ready for the big leagues.

That was the implication of a ruling on Friday from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that has been celebrated by renewable energy enthusiasts. A three-judge panel upheld a rule by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that requires energy storage and distributed energy sources to be able to fully participate in the nation’s major electricity markets, freeing them from rules by state regulators and utility companies that energy storage advocates say limited the technology’s potential revenue.

It wasn’t the only sign in recent days that energy storage is maturing as a power source. Yesterday California regulators announced they had connected to the grid a battery storage system of 62.5 megawatts — enough to power more than 10,000 homes and the largest such device in the country. And earlier today the U.K. government said it would allow battery storage projects to bypass a lengthy planning rules at the national level, easing the way for more development.

Analysts believe that the D.C. Circuit Court ruling could clear the way for the development of up to 50 gigawatts of energy storage, which would equal a third of the country’s current total wind and solar capacity. FERC’s chairman, Neil Chatterjee, hailed the ruling and said that the rule change FERC first published in February 2018 — known as Order 841 — “will be seen as the single most important act we could take to ensure a smooth transition to a new clean energy future.”

Any electrical grid that wants to run on 100% renewable energy — as many, including California’s and Germany’s, plausibly could do in the not-too-distant future — will need to have lots of energy storage on hand to ensure that wind- and solar-generated electricity is still available even when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t out.