Cell Press
The cost of energy storage will be critical in determining how much renewable energy can contribute to the decarbonization of electricity. But how far must energy storage costs fall? In a study published August 7 in the journal Joule, MIT researchers answer this question. They quantify cost targets for storage technologies to enable solar and wind energy with storage to reach competitiveness with other on-demand energy sources. They also examine what kinds of batteries and other technologies might reach these targets.
“One of the core sources of uncertainty in the debate about how much renewable energy can contribute to the deep decarbonization of electricity is the question of how much energy storage can be improved” says senior author Jessika Trancik, an associate professor of energy studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Different assumptions about the cost of energy storage underlie significant disagreements between a number of assessments, but little was known about what costs would actually be competitive and how these costs compare to the storage technologies currently being developed. So, we decided to address this issue head on.”
“Quantifying cost targets for energy storage required a new piece of insight,” Trancik says, ‘about how patterns of the renewable energy supply, and fluctuations in this supply, compare to electricity demand profiles. Large but infrequent solar and wind shortage events are critical in determining how much storage is needed for renewables to reliably meet demand, and it’s important to understand the characteristics of these events.”
In the paper, Trancik and her colleagues estimated the costs of using storage together with wind and solar energy to supply various output profiles reliably over twenty years. They then estimated cost targets for energy storage that would enable plants to reach cost-competitiveness with traditional electricity sources. They also evaluated current and future energy storage technologies against the estimated cost target.
The researchers’ model optimizes storage costs by using whatever combination of storage and solar and wind gives the lowest electricity cost. This often means oversizing solar and wind capacity relative to an intended output, to decrease the amount of storage needed.
The analysis also explored the characteristics that distinguish various storage options. Some technologies are more suited to inexpensively storing large quantities of energies but outputting it slowly, at lower power, while others can cost-effectively store smaller amounts that can be quickly discharged at high power. So the model needed to capture these differences, Trancik says.
The research found that technologies with energy storage capacity costs below $20/kWh could enable cost-competitive baseload power that is available all of the time over a twenty-year period, though this target varies with the target output profile and location. They found that electricity costs respond more to costs of storage energy capacity than power capacity.
The research showed that “it’s critical to reduce the costs of the materials and manufacturing that contribute to the cost of the storage energy capacity,” Trancik says. “The numerical target we estimate, which varies with location, could mean a 90 percent drop in storage costs relative to today’s technologies. It’s a large drop but some technologies do tend to improve a lot, as we’ve seen in the case of solar panels, for example.”
“However, and importantly, there is another factor that could raise this target considerably and allow more expensive technologies to cost-competitively store renewable energy, which is to use supplemental technologies for a small percent of the time,” Trancik says. Allowing the renewable energy system to fail to meet demand for just five percent of the hours over a twenty year period can halve the cost of renewable electricity, the researchers report.
“The trick there is to figure out how to supply electricity for the remaining 5% hours. That’s where we need to focus our efforts. This could potentially be accomplished with supplemental generation technologies, or perhaps demand-side management,” Trancik says. Expanding the electricity transmission grid could also help mitigate renewable energy supply fluctuations, she says.
The team is exploring options for low-cost and low-carbon supplemental technologies. They are also working to model how certain research directions and economies of scale can help drive down the costs of battery technologies.
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This work was supported by the MIT Portugal Program and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Joule, Trancik et al.: “Storage requirements for shaping renewable energy toward grid decarbonization” https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(19)30300-9
Joule (@Joule_CP), published monthly by Cell Press, is a new home for outstanding and insightful research, analysis, and ideas addressing the need for more sustainable energy. A sister journal to Cell, Joule spans all scales of energy research, from fundamental laboratory research into energy conversion and storage to impactful analysis at the global level. Visit http://www.cell.com/joule. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com. k
In Georgia (USA), we currently pay $0.15/KWh for electricity that is generated by a combo of gas, coal, nuclear, and hydro (including all taxes & recovery fees). Even with 90% projected reductions in current costs (in today’s dollars) for so-called renewable technologies (which assumes that the rare materials in them with be available in the quantities needed for mass deployment, and their costs are in line with those 90% cost-reduction projections), those reduced costs would still be measured in whole dollars per KWh – still about an order of magnitude greater that today.
As Andrew W above asks regarding the aim of this wealth-destructive fantasy being decarbonization, why would we want to do that?
A novel way to increase the inherent low capacity factor of PV, CSP in the winter months is being looked at-
https://twitter.com/solar_chase/status/1144161292061741058
“a very high DC:AC ratio to generate shoulder-time electricity while curtailing at peak.”
I just paid my 2019 annual true up bill with PG&E so naturally I wondered if these projects are based on Enron type accounting and the ability to get a fast 30% tax credit and dump the contracts…..
Are the extra costs to make sure light switches work going to role up under generation, distribution, transmission, reliability or just what…..
Fingers crossed it’s not another Solyndra: https://eestorcorp.com/about/
Here’s a company that asks for investment. They claim to have developed a surface modified Composition Modified Barium Titanate (CMBT) that blends well with a variety of polymer matrices, resulting in ultra-high energy density polymer capacitors. They have appointed Mr. Jing Peng as their new Chief Financial Officer.
Proviso: https://eestorcorp.com/2019/07/17/eestor-appoints-new-chief-financial-officer/
“Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, contained in this press release including, but not limited to (i) generally, or the “About EEStor” paragraph which essentially describes the Corporation’s outlook and objectives, constitute ”forward-looking information” or ”forward-looking statements” within the meaning of certain securities laws, and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as of the time of this press release. Forward looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by the Corporation as of the time of such statements, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. These estimates and assumptions may prove to be incorrect.
This is one of those ‘the sky is blue’ and ‘yes, boys and girls are different’ stories. Its been known for decades that in order for solar and wind to be feasible modes of generating large scale electricity, a breakthrough in storage (ie, batteries) is required. Its old news.
The paper makes it clear that a breakthrough in storage simply won’t be enough. Stretching it as far as they consider reasonable/possible/whatever, they still say that power will be absent for 5% of the time. As Joel points out above, that’s a rather mind-blowing 72 minutes per day. There’s also a diminishing return: each increment in battery capacity reduces the potential deficit by less percentage points than the previous increment.
The salient point is that no matter what quantity of renewables is installed, it can seriously underperform for an indefinite period. Coal and nuclear facilities can keep their on-site stockpile topped up. Gas facilities only have to keep their supply line going. But when a renewables facility’s battery runs out, the facility just stops.
It seems like they must have made a lot if assumptions about the demand in their demand side management concepts which have gone unstated. Reducing demand only buys you a little time in a growing economy and growing population. In my mind, the peak in peak-time power consumption would naturally increase relative to the non-peak hours as growth takes place (i.e., is ‘peakiness’ constant over market size?). And is there any consideration for the conversion to electrically powered transportation being proposed by many? That could shift peaks, in addition to adding considerably to overall demand.
Next, at what point in the demand curve would the reduction of 5% take place? It would be easy to assume it would be when people needed power the least, at non-peak times. I suspect though, for that plan to work, it would require the cut-back to be when people need power the most; at peak times. That is a prime consideration.
Finally, consider this: there was a mystery writer in the US, Mary Roberts Rinehart (the closest author the US has to Agatha Christie), whose settings took place in the early 1900s, contemporary times for her. They are fascinating from the respect of describing what life was like at the time. For instance the electricity was cut off every night, and turned on the next morning. This was the norm at the time, but some power at any time was better than previous. They used candles, oil lamps, fireplaces, etc. during those hours. People adapt. If you cut power to people one hour a day, they will find other ways to get power. The two most obvious ways is to have their own rechargeable batteries, or small generators (running of fossil fuels). So either power consumption is shifted to a different time, or the dreaded CO2 is released into the air.
So in the big picture, just what have they accomplished?
CO2 does not need to be reduced. Clean up coal and gas. Nuclear is OK if well proven and protected.
This article is fine as far as it goes . . . but it doesn’t go nearly far enough to be useful.
The elephant-in-the-room-that-nobody-talks-about, unmentioned in this article, is the massive amount of waste heat that will be generated by the inherent inefficiency of widespread electrical energy storage.
Global electricity use in 2018 was about 23,000 TWh (https://yearbook.enerdata.net/electricity/electricity-domestic-consumption-data.html ).
Let’s assume we desire to back up just 10% of that with electrical battery storage, fully recognizing there are some other very limited energy storage options such as pumped hydro. Then let’s further assume that the round-trip efficiency (i.e., AC net output versus AC/DC net input) is a generous 85% at commercial scale. We are then looking at (23,000 TWh)*(.1)*(.15) = 345 TWh of waste heat being dumped into the environment. That is roughly equivalent to the total energy output of 30 of the world’s largest nuclear power plants (1300 MW output capacity each) operating at peak power 24/7/365 being dumped directly into the global environment as waste heat.
So, if in the course of achieving much cheaper electrical battery storage (the main point of the above article), the attendant technology has a lower round-trip storage efficiency, say 70% instead of 85%, the amount of waste heat dumped into the environment would DOUBLE for the above scenario.
Now, didn’t I hear somewhere there was a concern about global warming?
You missed the first law of thermodynamics. All the energy generated by solar panels or wind turbines was removed from the system. If not harvested, it would have all become heat. So these are carbon neutral and energy neutral. Compare them to nuclear or FF generation where all of the output eventually becomes heat. I’m not saying anything about financials.
“All the energy generated by solar panels or wind turbines was removed from the system.”
You missed my point, as well as the second law of thermodynamics, often referred to as the Law of Entropy, which basically says that ANY energy conversion process (cycle) within a control volume will always require more total energy INPUT than will result as total usable energy output. So, your statement “All the energy generated by solar panels or wind turbines was removed from the system”, while correct, totally bypasses the fact that it takes even more energy than that to restore that “removed energy” back into a usable form, such as the equivalent of the original sunlight. One simple point: the energy required to fabricate solar PV panels and wind turbines and battery storage is not part of the energy generated by those solar panels or wind turbines that was “removed from the system.
“If not harvested, it would have all become heat.” Really?
You overlooked photosynthesis and energy storage as biomass. Moreover, you missed the fact that the solar spectrum reflectivity of PV panels is LOWER than that of grass, forests, farmland, rural areas, water and fresh snow (ref: https://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/solar-panels-near-airports-glare-issue/ ). Thus, solar panels actually increase net heat input to Earth compared to that which would otherwise have “become heat”via absorption of sunlight that is not reflected at Earth’s surface.
Bottom line: in reality, there is no such thing as “energy neutral” per the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
What too many people fail to understand is something I found earlier on WUWT. There is no Moore’s Law for battery technology. Some expect that there will be some enormous technological breakthrough that will magically make this all work. That’s highly unlikely. Improvements will be made, but they’ll be relatively small and incremental.
battery storage is way out of reach at this time due to physics and/or economics
https://fee.org/articles/41-inconvenient-truths-on-the-new-energy-economy/
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/green-energy-revolution-near-impossible
What they didn’t consider is that to “decarbonize” in a meaningful way, we will also have to transform the transportation sector, which is one of the biggest users of carbon-rich fuels. Practically, most of this will be in the form of replacing cars and trucks with pure EVs (as opposed to hybrids). All those batteries will need to be recharged every day, and for some, multiple times a day. This increases future electric demand by significant amounts, and only exacerbates the problems of renewable electricity generation. The necessary increases in the size of the grid alone represents a gigantic effort, let alone reducing the cost of grid-sized storage technology by 90% and then producing massive quantities of it. And all of that industrial output will have to powered, at least initially, by existing power sources, a.k.a fossil fuels. This all seems like the fanciful dreaming in the 50’s and 60’s about the flying cars we’d all have by 2000.
This alleged research is just more computer playtime wishing for fantasy solutions:
Nothing is mentioned about system backup by hydro, nuclear or fossil fuels having to run at the same time.
They oversized the renewable energy machines while ignoring the energy losses:
A) Converting DC to AC at a somewhat decent frequency and amperage. (Actually they require the backup generators to smooth out the AC into usable somewhat nondestructive energy.
B) Batteries exist because they desired them to exist. Size, location, rare earths, energy losses converting to AC and additional energy losses storing energy in the battery are not dealt with. Nor is the energy losses when the energy is withdrawn mentioned.
C) Technology is assumed to have leapt forward with generating and especially battery technology much advanced over current reality.
D) Time to store energy versus time it takes to run down the energy levels is not investigated. My home batteries charging require much more time than draining the batteries.
In other words, their models assume advanced technology is available and cheap to boot, subsidies are not discussed, leveled costs are usable instead of actual costs. Costs of materials, handling, mining, smelting, refining, construction, delivery, installation are not applicable.
S/
The world is wonderful and these things are right and beautiful and oh so natural.
Mines are not real.
Smelters do not exist.
Industrial requirements for energy rigidly held to specific very high quality electricity voltage, frequency and amperage are just business excesses and can be ignored.
Fertilizing the local land with bird and bat carcasses is a bonus.
/S
I can’t believe I am going to defend green technology, but I feel I need to point out the obvious…
You do not need to replace base-load power with wind or solar to reduce use of fossil fuels, just supplement it. I will assume nuclear is used for the primary base load in the future.
So energy storage for wind or solar must be sufficient to withstand a near worse case scenario for loss of the natural energy source (wind or sunlight). You must be able to charge the storage while providing a useful amount of electricity, and the storage must be able to provide that same amount of power for a number of hours equal to the near worse case. This means there must be a large storage capacity. (I am assuming the need for a fossil fuel backup is removed in the future).
Once way of providing backup would be in reserving hydro-power for near worse-cases. If there is a ongoing drought…well, then you are screwed. You could also reserve some percent of nuclear power, but I don’t see how this is ever cost effective – just use that instead of the wind or solar.
So now the cost. The energy generation + the energy storage + the energy backup would all have to be near the same costs as provided today by using coal and gas. This simply is not going to happen given the cheap costs of gas. The only scenario I see where (except under special circumstances like a desert) where wind or solar can ever compete is one in which fossil fuel prices double or triple.
Thinking you can get the costs of batteries down by 90% just doesn’t seem realistic. Maybe by 50%. The costs of wind and solar are quickly being discovered to be higher then estimated, and without subsidies, they just cannot compete (except in special circumstances). If you can get both batteries and wind or solar down to 50%, then we can start thinking about their expansion – until then we should just stop deploying them until they are actually market ready.
Recall what happened to the price of materials back in the building boom?
Attempting to build enough wind and solar capacity and replace everything with electric that currently uses FF directly, and doing this all over the world (because doing it in one place or another will not change a thing) would dwarf that demand.
I have never seen anything to suggest mining machines and transports and everything else required to produce the amounts of everything that would be needed, including a whole new upgraded grid, is in any way possible.
And even these authors state that the cost of batteries seems to have hit a wall.
There will be no huge breakthrough that makes batteries significantly more power dense than what is possible now.
And they do not last, despite being crazy expensive.
Enough power walls to store power for a day, would cost far more than the house it was powering.
“The research found that technologies with energy storage capacity costs below $20/kWh could enable cost-competitive baseload power that is available all of the time over a twenty-year period”
Tesla’s famous South Australian battery is good for 129 MWh and cost $96 million. That is $744 per kWh
We only need to cut costs by 97 % boys!
“Renewable energy’s full potential”… To do what, exactly?
Storage will have to provide power for the YEARS required to build real generation plants after wind/solar prove inadequate.
The UK has just suffered one of its worst power outages for years.
It looks like the grid was taking plenty of power from wind farms as it is pretty windy. Then suddenly a couple of these farms tripped out, probably because it was too windy. The grid could not bring enough base power online quickly enough and it crashed parts of the grid.
Those eco loons who ended up being trapped on trains or left stranded at stations or without power at home, might be given some food for thought.
It is far more difficult to maintain the grid when you have a fair proportion of renewable sources feeding it. The bigger the proportion the bigger the problem.
Inevitably, the trend will be to decentralized power, with all its inefficiencies and greater pollution. People of means aren’t going to put up with all this.
Get your Generac while you still can.
A wind farm failure in the North Sea triggered a major power cut across the whole UK:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-49300025
A taste of things to come..
This UK power cut has similarities with the South Australia one – high winds causing wind generated electricity to surge before being suddenly cut off when winds got too high.
Article: Bridging the Renewable Energy Infrastructure Gap. Using something call a Zinc-Air battery. Zinc-air fuel cells are flow batteries that are powered by oxidizing zinc with oxygen from the air. Seems it’s ready to go?
https://stockhouse.com/opinion/independent-reports/2019/07/22/bridging-renewable-energy-infrastructure-gap
From your link:
“Today, MGX Renewables Inc. is expected to start trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) under the symbol MGXR.”
Says all you need to know….
Zinc-air batteries have been ready to go for about 50 years. GM planned to use them for EV’s back in the seventies.
I would recommend reading the article:
“Electricity storage as a matching tool between variable renewable energy and load”.
Link below:
https://ssrn.com/author=3534904
ABSTRACT
The transition to low carbon emitting solutions imposes new challenges to the power sector to accommodate a large penetration of intermittent renewables. It goes beyond the cheapest symmetrical reduction of fossil thermal generation that is being avoided. Storage is seen as the solution and also the option for batteries, but using a Discrete Fourier Transform and real hourly data it is shown that storage acts as an integral function, attenuating the “daily” and “weekly” harmonics of the charging / discharging function and leaving the “yearly” cycle as the main component to set the storage capacity needed. Export / import with neighbour systems shall be seen as a competitor with storage, but it poses mutual dependency and shared security issues. The renewable generation cost reduction in the “learning curve”, achieving a levelized cost below the variable cost of a CCGT is a milestone and it allows accepting a certain level of curtailment as an alternative to reduce the investment in storage. Batteries do not solve the long-term storage problem but today its use begins to be competitive in the “daily” cycle, replacing peaking gas plants and reinforcing the concept that the cost of storage can be seen as an equivalent thermal power plant. Better than assuming a fraction of renewable energy curtailment, it might be the development of Power-To-X solutions (hydrogen, synthetic gas, etc.) or even investing in nuclear power plants and limiting intermittent renewables penetration accordingly. Both solutions represent indirect electricity storage – fuel has a low storage cost – and it can solve the renewable surplus seasonal transfer problem, recovering synchronous generators for providing dispatchable flexibility, inertia to the system and serving as backup for periods with low renewable generation.