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Page added on February 18, 2013
The Case for Grid-Connected Energy Storage
This past week, I attended the Midwest Energy Forum at the University of Chicago. The Forum focused on the future of the U.S. electricity grid and the technologies that are likely to transform it over the next 30 years. Experts in many of these technologies, including energy storage, wind, solar, nuclear, gas, and high voltage DC transmission systems, made presentations.
Of all the technologies discussed, however, I came away with the impression (which I suspect was shared by many) that energy storage was the poor step child of the renewables industry. Although the representatives of the wind, solar and other renewables industries were polite and nominally supportive of storage, they were consistent in their message that storage has a long way to go and that it was certainly nowhere near as important as the renewable energy technologies they were advocating.
In fairness, the storage experts did not do much to rebut this perception. While several experts gave good presentations about what storage could do on the grid, none explained with anything near the coherence of the wind, solar and transmission proponents why what storage could do was important and why the public or the government should care about it.
It is, of course, critically important that the energy storage industry make its case for support to the government and to the public in a way that is honest, rational and persuasive. Our colleagues in the wind and solar industries have done a great job of doing that. At least in terms of public relations and dialogue, I would agree with them that storage has a long way to go.
So let me give it a try: Storage is important for the same reason that wind and solar energy are important but only more so–and only assuming that the true value of wind and solar energy technology is properly understood.
While it is true that wind and solar are relatively clean forms of energy, cleanliness in itself is not their principal value to the grid. Some experts argue that because of the cycling of thermal energy plants that generally must take place in order to balance the variable nature of wind and solar power, the overall environmental benefits of wind and solar are overstated. Whether or not that is true, it is certainly true that the relative environmental benefits of wind and solar energy depend on the nature of the fuels they replace. Where that fuel is relatively clean natural gas (which appears will be the case in the United States for the foreseeable future), it is difficult to argue that the low relative environmental benefits of wind and solar over natural gas justify the billions of dollars of subsidies that the wind and solar industries have received.
But wind and solar energy are, in fact, of great value to the electricity grid. Their value, however, derives not just from the fact that they are relatively clean but from the fact that they each represent a useful new power resource that permits us to operate the grid more flexibly. Society can use this new flexibility to change the way that electricity is generated and used across the system so as to pursue whatever goals society wants to achieve.
A good example of this is what is happening in Germany. Following the Fukushima accident, Germany decided to abandon nuclear power completely within 11 years. This is no minor ambition, given that in 2010 about 22.4% of all electricity in Germany came from nuclear power. One may agree or disagree with Germany’s plans to transition away from nuclear power. But what is beyond question is that Germany could never hope to effect such a transition, let alone to have a rational discussion about doing so, but for the resources and flexibility that wind and solar power (and perhaps storage) now provide.
The fact that wind and solar energy have become useful resources for grid operators—whether to move away from nuclear energy, or move towards cleaner fuels, or to emphasize distributed generation, or to achieve whatever other goals society might want to achieve with its electric power system– is solely a consequence of the investments that have been made in wind and solar technologies over the past ten years. Ten years ago, both wind and solar energy were not far beyond the stuff of tie dye t-shirts and Hollywood playthings. No knowledgeable person would have supposed that wind or solar energy could be a major source of generation on the electricity grid. Costs were too high, reliability was suspect, and capacities and efficiencies were far too low to be of any practical use on the grid.
What a difference ten years and a few billion dollars of subsidies makes. The cost of wind and solar energy technologies has plummeted. Reliability and utility have been proven by hundreds of projects around the world. Even capacity factors, the alleged Achilles Heel of renewable energy, have risen dramatically. As a wind developer at the Midwest Energy Forum put it: “If my project has a capacity factor of more than 50%, does it still count as variable energy?”
And that brings us back to energy storage. For however much flexibility wind and solar technology may offer to grid operators, energy storage technology offers more. The ability to move electrons over time as well as over space opens a world of opportunities as to how that ability can be used and how the grid can be designed. Storage can be used to alter the balance of generation technologies, favoring those that are cleaner or otherwise deemed more favorable over those that are not. Storage can reduce the need for physical grid infrastructure, promoting energy efficiency, reducing O&M costs and improving viewscapes. Energy storage can reduce the cycling of thermal plant, provide greater power security, enable distributed generation, allow the development of microgrids, and facilitate a wide variety of other possibilities on the grid, the benefits of which may be difficult fully to understand today. After all, who in 2010 would have predicted that in 2011 a top priority of Germany’s energy policy would be eliminating nuclear power?
If the highest objective of new energy technology is to provide greater flexibility to manage the electricity grid in ways that society deems most beneficial, then no technology—not wind, not solar, not biomass, not new transmission technology—is more important to develop than energy storage technology. Energy storage is not just about making the grid cleaner (though it can be). It is about making the grid more robust and more flexible so that policy makers, now and in the future, can shape the grid to the requirements of society as those requirements change over time. No new energy technology can do that as well as energy storage.
20 Comments on "The Case for Grid-Connected Energy Storage"
Kenz300 on Mon, 18th Feb 2013 2:57 am
As electric and hybrid vehicles become more common, the cars and their batteries will provide backup power generation for homes. When the batteries need to be replaced for the car the used batteries can still be used for backup power and storage system solutions. Battery technology is improving.
rollin on Mon, 18th Feb 2013 3:06 am
Obviously there has been a total disconnect between building wind and solar power stations and the need to provide level power to the grid 24/7. A few places have developed storage at solar sites, most think they can attach solar or wind to the grid and everything will work out. Seems illogical and poorly thought out. It is a wonder that the fossil fuel power companies have not sued these people for forcing them to try and compensate for the wildly varying loads. Various types of storage have to be developed and installed along with the wind and solar power systems. That of course would increase the cost but it would make the system workable on a large scale.
The problem is that the world at large and the ecosystem have been paying all the external costs of using fossil fuels for generation and the power companies get off scott free. The wind and solar power companies don’t want to pay for storage and neither do the fossil fuel power companies. A real conundrum, needs a political solution.
Plantagenet on Mon, 18th Feb 2013 3:20 am
Germany is not only building wind and solar power—they are also building coal-fired power plants to back up the wind and solar when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t out. The total expense is ENORMOUS and is one of the reasons Germany has plunged back into a double-dip recession.
BillT on Mon, 18th Feb 2013 3:26 am
Ah yes, the techies believing that there is a solution right around the corner … all we have to do is throw more money at them and they will perform miracles … eventually.
Batteries DO ‘wear out’ Kenz, and then they have to be hauled somewhere and disassembled and recycled, all using huge amounts of energy.
Rollin, some countries don’t allow solar or wind to attach to systems for that very reason, the huge problem of balancing loads.
The only practical ‘alternate’ systems are independent and individual, not grid. I believe that that is the direction we are headed as cheap energy goes away. There is not the trillions of dollars available to make a whole new system based on alternatives, especially as even alternatives will not last that long. The are not able to produce enough excess energy to reproduce themselves. Without oil, they will eventually cease to exist.
DC on Mon, 18th Feb 2013 5:41 am
The idea of using flammable designed-to-wear-out-on-schedule Li-on EVs to back up the grid, is, frankly, a ridiculous one. I really wish people would stop pushing that hoax. You should know better Ken…
There are just 2 tiny problems with your idea there.
#1, Those Crappy Li-on EV’s dont exist. You can say there coming(one day, sometime), but they are not here now, and likely never will be. GM and Standard Oil saw to that. That horse left the barn a century ago. Ok?
#2 That mythical ‘smart-grid’ with its hundreds of millions of required plug-in points for all those EV’s that also, do not exist,does not exist either. The 100’s of billions\trillions required to build it, also do not exist. The US corporate elite would rather spend it on wars to steal other peoples resources than build anything worthwhile in the ‘homeland’.
Ya seeing? or rather, NOT seeing it? Neither of those elements in place, and neither will likely ever materialize, except in very small token amounts before a hard decline sets in,in which case, Any EVs or ‘smart-grid’ portions do exist, will be among the 1st things to decay. Being the most complex will mean they are the most fragile, so they will some of the 1st things to go.
GregT on Mon, 18th Feb 2013 5:45 am
Far too much time is being wasted discussing technologies that are simply not feasible, at least not in a large enough scale to matter.
We need open dialogue on the reality of our predicament, so that people can come to the realization of how serious it is. Food production should be our first priority, not personal transportation or electric power generation. Food is a basic need for survival, moving around at 120 km per hour underneath street lights, is not.
Like it or not, our world is about to dramatically change. We can either embrace that change and make the best of it, or we can waste precious time and resources on issues that are not relevant.
Food, water, shelter and security need to be addressed first. Once we have the necessities figured out then we can move on to less important things.
Arthur on Mon, 18th Feb 2013 8:26 am
The Germans are so successful in promoting wind and solar that the grid capacity limits are reached. The next logical step is making sure that as much of the local produced energy is stored and consumed locally. And that is the nect emphasis in the ‘Energiewende’:
http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/germany–promoting-solar-power-storage_100009865/#axzz2IFTH8VTH
@plant: Germany is NOT in a recession.
DC and others are right, EVs should be our last priority. Consider: one hour driving is 15,000 hours ipad usage, 1,000 hour television watching, 3,000 hour paper book reading at night, 1,000 hours fridge usuage. Driving is a terrible waste. Send images and sounds of yourself over a wire, rather then moving your 90 kg body in a steel harnass of 1200 kg over miles of roads to reach the same effect. Driving is sooo 20th century. Remember that in the old days people had to come to the studio to get interviewed? Nobody does that anymore, all use skype like programs. So why on earth should you drive to your boss if you do not have to? Why should teachers and pupils meet at all in a class room?
Arthur on Mon, 18th Feb 2013 9:04 am
“even alternatives will not last that long. The are not able to produce enough excess energy to reproduce themselves.”
How often are you going to repeat this BS, Bill? You know it is not true. Wind on good locations, like offshore can be eroei 50, solar 10. The excess energy of a single well located windturbine is enough te reproduce a million windturbines in a decade or so.
Arthur on Mon, 18th Feb 2013 9:17 am
http://deepresource.wordpress.com/2012/12/30/wilpoldsried-makes-millions-from-renewables/
Here is what you can achieve with technology, a Bavarian village of 2600, producing 320% more energy that it can consume. Use the google maps link to zoom in from space to see that not even that many roofs are covered with panels. If one Bavarian village can do it, all western European villages can do it, like in Canada, New Zealand, Australia and NW USA. These villages can use excess energy to produce H2 that can be converted in CH4, just to silence those who insist you need carbon fuel. The essential factor though is that you do not wait with the transition, and complete it, before the world is running out of fuel, essential to bootstrap the transition process. Now is the time, as renewables are the cheapest in history.
Mind you, this kind of transition will only be achieved by a skilled population, not in the third world.
BillT on Mon, 18th Feb 2013 10:07 am
Arthur, you are sounding more and more psychotic every day. Your EROEI is skewed to the high side. Obviously you are part of the techies making money off of wind/PV and when they go away so will your income.
As for commuting to a job. Sorry, 99% of employed people have to drive to work. A laptop does not deliver goods, police the streets, haul the garbage, fix the street, run the food stores,and on and on. Only a few techies get to do that today and there will be fewer and fewer as the contraction continues.
As for Germany, they do have a lot of air arising from their hot egos, but … that is all temporary. If they don’t bail from the EU soon, they will be taken down by the lessor Europe and it might be France not Greece.
Dream on techie and enjoy it while you can, but I hope you’re buying gold and have a safe place to run to when it all falls apart.
Bor on Mon, 18th Feb 2013 2:24 pm
Without cheap fossil fuel our infrastructure will cease to exist.
All these dreamers about alternatives like wind and solar sound like they are members of a club, where everyone believes that inside of our planet is another one, which is much larger than the first one.
Is it illness or amazing illiteracy or both?
GregT on Mon, 18th Feb 2013 4:26 pm
For tens of thousands of years, pre fossil fuelled technological society, people spent much of their time gathering, growing, and hunting for food. Even today, many still do. Those that are living without the excess of luxuries that fossil fuels provide all of us here on this site.
Each of us have the equivalent of hundreds of energy slaves working for us 24/7 that are right now as we speak, magically doing this work for us. As the EROEI ratio of oil continues to drop, so do the number of “slaves” that we enjoy. The signs are all around us, and should be obvious to anyone that is able to think.
Our population has exploded, not because of iPads, light bulbs, jet aircraft, or colour television sets, but because of modern agricultural practices. Modern agriculture is completely dependant on fossil fuels. Our society is completely dependant on food. Without it, we will die.
There is absolutely no point in trying to figure out how to keep the lights on, or how to telecommute so that we can keep filling our bank accounts, when our very survival depends on food production.
We need to address our basic needs for survival first and foremost, and until we do, addressing anything else is foolish, and completely irrelevant.
Arthur on Mon, 18th Feb 2013 4:56 pm
“Arthur, you are sounding more and more psychotic every day. Your EROEI is skewed to the high side. Obviously you are part of the techies making money off of wind/PV and when they go away so will your income.”
For the second time, I am not in renewables, but in consultancy completely unrelated to the energy business. Most people who understand peakoil, and are not in the renewables business, resort to renewables, nothing special about my position. Wind and solar have been the answer for 40 years since the report of the Club of Rome came out.
About EREOI, even extreme pessimist Charles Hall (mr EREOI himself) comes with EREOI for wind = 20, see wiki page “Energy returned on energy invested”. That must be onshore, as offshore has significant higher values. And even 20 is more than enough.
“As for commuting to a job. Sorry, 99% of employed people have to drive to work. A laptop does not deliver goods, police the streets, haul the garbage, fix the street, run the food stores,and on and on. ”
60% of the work force is office worker and they can stay at home and increasingly do.
“As for Germany, they do have a lot of air arising from their hot egos, but … that is all temporary.”
They do the real work, even brought the Americans to the moon, so they could dream of ‘exceptionalism’ and ‘policing’ the world.lol
The globalist Anglo-Soviet intermezzo lasted from 1945-201x. After the crash history will be rewritten and a multipolar world will emerge.
“Dream on techie and enjoy it while you can, but I hope you’re buying gold and have a safe place to run to when it all falls apart.”
I am well prepared, including metals, no debt and paid off real estate, but the crash in Europe is not going to happen during your lifetime, if there is going to be a crash at all. DEcline all over the place, yes, the car will be largely gone, for sure, including perpetual growth and industrial society and be replaced with a localized information society: oil & gas out, data & electricity in.
And really, the Philipines are the last place you want to be if that territory will become tribal again. And he food security is one of the worst on the planet, only Africa is worse:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2011/aug/31/food-security-prices-conflict#
Come home, while you can, if you are indeed an American of German descent as you say and not an Asian American, which would explain your Chinese bias and gleefull predictions of western demise. Your pension is going to be slashed first as it is part of the $222 trillion US government unfunded liabilities. So what are you going to do if the ATM in Manilla says “no service”? Answer: taking back the first flight home to your family in the States.
Arthur on Mon, 18th Feb 2013 5:09 pm
“Modern agriculture is completely dependant on fossil fuels. Our society is completely dependant on food. Without it, we will die.”
Humans have lived an agricultural life for 10,000 years now. Western agriculture produces excess food with only 2% of the workforce. OK, so this number is going to increase, but it will not return to say 70%, like it was in the middle ages.
“There is absolutely no point in trying to figure out how to keep the lights on, or how to telecommute so that we can keep filling our bank accounts, when our very survival depends on food production.”
Not even Heinberg believes that the lights will go out or that we will loose ‘gadgets’.
“We need to address our basic needs for survival first and foremost, and until we do, addressing anything else is foolish, and completely irrelevant.”
Well then, read Thoreau’s Walden, build a cabin in the woods and ‘go back to nature’. I prefer to stay in the city, like Europeans have done for centuries, without a car, and work with my brains rather than my hands, as I estimate that at least Europe will achieve some form of energy transition. It is already underway and will have achieved levels by 2020-2025, before peak gas, that will secure the future of Europe with some light industry left.
GregT on Mon, 18th Feb 2013 5:13 pm
Arthur,
I would suggest, that the first thing that any of us will be doing when the ATM machines say “no service”, is guarding our back yard gardens from the masses of starving people that will be trying desperately to steal our food.
You do have a large enough garden, right? Or have you figured out a way to synthesize food from data and electricity?
GregT on Mon, 18th Feb 2013 6:32 pm
Arthur,
My “cabin in the woods” happens to be a house on an acreage, in a community of 30,000 people, five hundred kilometres away from the nearest “city”. The vast majority of people have large gardens, including myself. It is blocks from an ocean full of fish, and I have a harder time keeping the deer out of my garden than I would have hunting for them.
Our food prices here have inflated along with gasoline. An entire shopping cart full of food fifteen years ago cost about fifty dollars. Yesterday I spent 80 dollars on one bag of food. The truck I bought 30 years ago cost 18 dollars to fill with fuel. My truck today, with the same sized tank costs over 100. Wages have been stagnant for the past 15 years. These trends will not only continue, they will accelerate.
My grand parents lived on a farm, they produced their own food, and lived well into their 90s. My parents lived a fruitful life, as do I. My children’s generation are living pay check to pay check, and most are going further and further into debt. It is costing them more to live day to day, than what they make in income. Very few of them own their own homes, and most likely never will.
Our education system is underfunded, our medical system is underfunded, our mass transit is underfunded and our provincial government is 60 billion dollars in debt. Our society is on a downhill slide.
The amount of homelessness in the cities is growing exponentially, violent crime is a daily occurrence, murders are rampant and the use of intravenous drugs is everywhere. People wander the streets at night stealing everything they can, even things that are bolted down, like the exhaust system from my truck earlier this year. Problems that did not exist 20 years ago.
Electricity costs have skyrocketed, our hydro electric company has just installed “smart meters” and time of use billing is just around the corner. We have been told that half of all of our electricity by 2020 will need to come from conservation.
The system that I grew up in is slowly grinding to a halt. I suspect that another doubling of fuel prices like we have seen in the past 5 years should pretty much finish the economy off.
Sorry, but if you think that further oil price spikes will be resolved by solar or wind power, I believe that you are in for a very rude awakening.
rollin on Mon, 18th Feb 2013 7:03 pm
I wonder how little energy we can live on and still maintain a technological civilization. Everything we do has to be re-vamped from agriculture,to transportation to building. All has to be designed to minimize material loss and energy use. Will life still be adventurous and exciting or will it become an over-regulated static hive culture.
Arthur on Mon, 18th Feb 2013 8:24 pm
Greg,
“five hundred kilometres away from the nearest “city””
Whoops, I am impressed, I wish I could say that! Probably near the Arctic? In Holland it is impossible to find a spot where you can’t hear a car.
“Yesterday I spent 80 dollars on one bag of food.”
Well, it depends of course on what was in the bag… bread or kaviar 😉
But I agree, it is getting expensive these days. But there is a counter strategy. I have developed the iron will to stay under 88 kg, on a length of 191 cm. During the five weekdays I eat 2 hard boiled eggs, 350 gram high quality food from a specialized butcher (Dutch hotchpotch or Asian food) and a bit of salad, also from a high quality grocery. Cost per day: 0.40 + 2.50 + 1.50 = 4.40 euro, that’s 90 euro/month per person. During the weekend my wife can go ‘culinary’. That costs quite a bit more (wine!), but I could easily extend my cheap regime over all days of the year, if necessary. Add 1 liter coffee per day and 2 cups of tea and I am happy for 150 euro per month. That’s 15% of garanteed minimum income in The Netherlands (I am way above that). I used to have a vegetable garden with my father when I was a kid and for years we participated in a ‘rent-a-chicken’ project, so I know the prepper basics. But I do not expect sudden collapse but a protracted decline, along the ‘ASPO slope’.
“The truck I bought 30 years ago cost 18 dollars to fill with fuel.”
I sold my Italian sports car recently (fuel 100 euro for 660 km) and bought an old fourth hand German car, the most fuel efficient ever build (fuel 25 euro diesel for 600 km, which brings my from Holland to Switzerland).
“Very few of them own their own homes, and most likely never will.”
Now is the worst time buy a home, don’t. Rent. Gives you flexibility in these uncertain times.
“The amount of homelessness in the cities is growing exponentially, violent crime is a daily occurrence, murders are rampant and the use of intravenous drugs is everywhere. People wander the streets at night stealing everything they can, even things that are bolted down, like the exhaust system from my truck earlier this year. Problems that did not exist 20 years ago.”
It is not as bad here. There is little homelessness. Exhaust: sounds like Russia, where car owners always remove the window whipers from their cars, otherwise it gets stolen. My house was broken in once in my life, insurance covered everything. Never witnessed serious violence in my entire life.
“Sorry, but if you think that further oil price spikes will be resolved by solar or wind power, I believe that you are in for a very rude awakening.”
I never said that. I said that oil is running out so we need something else, whatever it costs, and that is going to be wind and solar. And it is going to be more expensive per kwh, no question about that, certainly in the beginning.
So yes, we are on a path of decline and it is not going to be better in our lifetime.
GregT on Mon, 18th Feb 2013 11:53 pm
Arthur,
The province of British Columbia is almost 1800km from corner to corner. I could drive for 2500 km north of where I am right now, and except for a handful of communities, see nothing but wilderness.
I don’t really have the options that you do in food choices as I have three mouths to feed. My son eats like a horse, he is very athletic and a fast growing young man.
I use my truck only to tow my trailer when we explore the above wilderness, otherwise we drive a Honda Civic. Not as efficient as what you may have, but cheaper than what most people here drive. A lot of people drive big trucks and SUVs all the time. I still can’t figure out why, I guess it make them feel bigger.
I have owned my home and “cabin” for a very long time, long before the real estate bubble of the last decade. One will be up for sale shortly, the profit will more than pay for the other.
You are fortunate that you are not experiencing the societal breakdown that is starting to occur here. There is hardly a day goes by anymore that there isn’t a shooting, stabbing, beating etc.. As a matter of fact, there hardly seems to be a day go by anymore that the police aren’t up on charges.
I agree, I also believe that we are on a path of decline, but I don’t believe that things are going to be anywhere near hospitable here by 2020/ 2025. That is why we are moving away from the city, ASAP.
DC on Tue, 19th Feb 2013 5:12 am
BC, sadly is no paragon of sustainability. The interior cities outside the lower mainland are nearly 100% consumption driven. Despite having hydro power, most of it gets shunted off the US. No one grows much of anything in ratholes like Kelowna, Kamloops, P.G., take you pick. They are all covered in over-priced condos and big box stores now. Its laudable that the Lower mainland area is about 50% food sufficient, but thats about it.
Clark pumping out full section propaganda in the papers about needing 1 million new workers by 2035. Will there be any trees left standing by 2035 between the loggers, pollution and the pine beetle? I wonder about that sometimes. The gov going full tilt with all this ‘responsible resource development’ BS. They are nearly as bad as all those CAPP adds yes? The race to liquidate the last of the resources is going on full-tilt. So lets build more billion dollar bridges for cars and more highway expansions.
That will make everything ok….