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Page added on October 7, 2014
Energy Storage: Bright Future, But Challenges Ahead
The Energy Storage North America (ESNA) conference in San Jose, CA last week can be summed up in one word – optimism. The sanguine outlooks on market opportunities and trends were unanimous. Several vendors can’t manufacture their equipment fast enough to meet demand.
California is making the market for energy storage. The ninth largest economy in the world recognized energy storage systems as important technologies in electricity value chains with the passage of AB2514. The CPUC decision 13-10-040 set the regulatory expectations about utility-interconnected and behind the meter energy storage. States like California view energy storage as a critical tool to firm up intermittent forms of renewable generation. State policies in the Northeast USA encourage energy storage systems to deliver resiliency for grids and critical infrastructure. Of course, a credible argument could be proffered that Tesla is making a market for energy storage with its gigafactory in Nevada. The company plans to build 50 GWh in annual battery storage starting in 2017. These combined influences are driving the growth of new storage technologies, services and financing mechanisms.
The comparisons to solar trajectory trends are well-known. Energy storage technologies are expected to rapidly decrease in price in response to increased economies of scale and expertise. Deployment numbers forecast fast growth – particularly in behind the meter solutions that focus on reducing electricity costs due to high demand charges.
But the energy storage ecosystem has to overcome two challenges that could have negative impacts on adoption rates. First, energy storage technologies are diverse. There are chemical and non-chemical categories of storage. There are many subcategories based on different elements such as lithium, zinc, sodium, or iron; and non-chemical storage ranges from pumped hydro to compressed air to flywheels. There is significant variety in number of charges, stability in different environmental conditions, and form factors. You can select an energy storage solution to ensure that your mission-critical devices or operations are not disrupted by power outages – a resiliency function. Storage can help maintain stable grid operations, a reliability function. Storage can reduce electricity use at peak time periods or avoid those demand charges mentioned above – a cost-savings function. The market places very different values on the potential uses for energy storage by function. There’s a lot of confusion that needs to be addressed with education to ensure buyers are making sound decisions that meet and exceed their expectations.
The second challenge is that early stage energy storage technologies and services are usually proprietary and customized engineering solutions. Deployments may include features that aren’t supported on a commercial scale, or may not exist in the future. All of these qualities increase the balance of system costs that go beyond the storage equipment purchases. There is no equivalent to a USB standard for physical connections of different energy storage solutions to the grid. The Byzantine variety of permitting processes and fees is a problem that bedevils the solar industry too, but it’s a brand new learning curve for the energy storage system integrators and installers. In essence, there’s too much complexity in the entire design, development and deployment process for energy storage systems, and it’s an area that’s ripe for innovation.
The good news is that vendors are working collaboratively to solve some of these problems. There’s a new industry initiative called the Modular Energy Storage Architecture (MESA) standard initiative that can help promote more of a plug and play environment. It would be interesting to see similar collaborative efforts between utilities to standardize on interconnection processes. Likewise, the irrationalities of municipal permitting processes should be replaced with national standards – just as we use the NEC (National Electrical Code) to define the safe design and installation of electrical systems in a uniform way across the USA.
The energy storage ecosystem has to rapidly mature, or suffer self-inflicted pain evident in inflexible, non-scalable, and proprietary solutions slowed down with non-standard processes. These challenges could reduce overall investment paybacks for grid scale and behind the meter deployments. Industry optimism must be tempered with pragmatism to create the right technology and policy frameworks that enable continued success to this important segment of Smart Grid solutions.
11 Comments on "Energy Storage: Bright Future, But Challenges Ahead"
Makati1 on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 7:48 pm
Dreamers…
coffeeguyzz on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 8:14 pm
C’mon, Makti, where’s your sense of optimism? The continuing onslaught of technological innovation is accelerating at a dizzying pace (Didja see the previous article bout the German seawater powered car?)
Developments such as the increasing application of arguably the most wondrous material introduced in our lifetimes – graphene – bode well on so many levels.
3D printing/manufacturing is already revolutionizing some industries (a guy in China built 10 rudimentary houses in 24 hours with 3D printing/manufacturing a few months back as a demo.
We demonized “Cornicopians” aren’t bashful bout keeping all this innovation confined to the “All bidness”. You renewable energy guys are gonna benefit – as are we all – as well.
MSN Fanboy on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 8:24 pm
coffeeguyzz, please tell me how we will benefit?
You ever watched judge dredd? the mega cities etc.. the dead planet etc..
If the cornies manage to pull this off that is our future.
I would prefer them to fail LOL
but why am i commenting, we all know collapse is baked into the cake.
The fact that humanity is depleting renewable resources, like fresh water, shows how unsustainable this is.
Bring on the peak, peak oil lite is boring.
GregT on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 8:29 pm
The planet Earth is full of optimism. We just spend far too much of our time pursuing human technologies to take notice. That isn’t going to continue for much longer though, without a healthy planet, human technologies are somewhat redundant.
apneaman on Wed, 8th Oct 2014 2:40 am
optimism? At an industry conference held for potential investors? Why I’ve never heard of such a thing.
Graphene-the latest techno revolution. In the last ten years there have been so many revolutions that I’ve gone permanently dizzy and I’m puking my fucking guts out.
Davy on Wed, 8th Oct 2014 6:51 am
I will give my no time no money Bob Marley tune (no woman no cry). Then there is the too little too late morning rooster crow. I will mention the need in our current lifeboat situation low tech, low cost, simple, robust, dispersed and quick implementation. This is wishful thinking on the scale needed but it is the most effective postmodern mitigation option. Even this AltE (lite) option will be dated with entropic decay eventually. The (lite) approach is true of rail transport also. Forget high-speed trains think the opposite. Any large scale typical BAU AltE investments is better than a new baseball stadium like I was in last night when the Cardinals beat LA. The previous stadium was fine. Large scale AltE of all kinds is going to be shut in when the grid becomes variable. AltE is already variable and difficult to integrate into a complex grid arrangements. The modern consumer cannot function properly with variability. Adding variability to variability is a poor combination for complexity. Smart grid policies are further dangerous complications leaving lower grid resilience. The bottom up approach AltE (lite) I mentioned above is in no way adequate in mitigating the terminal decline of BAU. This approach lacks critical mass potential. There is little hope of TPTB embracing this approach because it is a managed de-growth policy that is not a BAU priority. The AltE (lite) approach would be the most efficient use of capital and resources.
steve on Wed, 8th Oct 2014 10:29 am
The system is set up for unbridled optimism—–it is hard to get laid when you are a pessimist….
Kenz300 on Wed, 8th Oct 2014 12:29 pm
Solar combined with energy storage will be the future of electricity generation.
IEA Report Predicts Solar Power Domination by 2050
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/10/iea-report-predicts-solar-power-domination-by-2050
Poordogabone on Wed, 8th Oct 2014 6:28 pm
When they talk about energy storage, it means only one thing: electricity. Unfortunately you can’t store electricity efficiently especially on a big scale. Batteries or other schemes are a joke unless people are willing to pay an arm and a leg for their electricity.
Good only for attracting uninformed investors.
Those projects are non starters in our present economy.
One should be open minded but not so open that your brain falls out.
Kenz300 on Wed, 8th Oct 2014 6:34 pm
The transition to safer, cleaner and cheaper energy sources continues……
Wind and solar energy gets cheaper every year……
Fossil fuel prices continue to rise and cause environmental damage.
——————-
The Inevitability of Solar
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/09/the-inevitability-of-solar
simonr on Thu, 9th Oct 2014 12:06 am
Ok, given the cornucopian dream of lovely energy storage pans out.
Assuming the point of this is to keep BAU …. where is the energy coming from ?
Also how much leccy will we need to replace all that oil ?