Proven Technology
Almost weekly, another revolutionary break-through occurs in renewable technology. Many of these claim to be the next big thing when it comes to renewable generation, or the break-through in solving a storage issue. These are primarily exciting research projects with promising lab results and they demonstrate how much effort the scientific community is dedicating towards renewable technology. In truth we can have an immediate impact on climate change with the proven technology available in the market today.
Deployment of renewable energy such as wind and solar power has been increasing exponentially, while the costs have been dropping much faster than expected. For five key low-carbon technologies – wind farms, solar farms, residential solar panels, batteries and LEDs – costs fell between 41% and 94% from 2008 to 2015. The current market for grid-scale battery storage in the globally is dominated by a proven technology: lithium-ion. Lithium-ion batteries (LIB)s have a relatively high energy density (up to 200 Wh/kg), high EE (more than 85%), and long cycle life (3000 cycles at deep discharge of 80%). Due to continued research and improved manufacturing capacity, lithium-ion chemistries have experienced a steep price decline of over 70% from 2010-2016, and prices are projected to decline further.
The deployment of proven battery energy storage systems (BESS) overcomes one of the biggest obstacles to renewable energy — its cycling between oversupply when the sun shines or the wind blows, and shortage when the sun sets or the wind drops. By smoothing imbalances between supply and demand, batteries can replace fossil fuel “peaker” plants that kick in for a few hours a day when energy demands soar. Energy storage is key to expanding the reach of renewables and speeding the transition to a carbon-free power grid.
BESS have additional benefits to the broader energy system. They can enable TNSPs and DNSPs to defer transmission and distribution upgrades by reducing the load on these system during peak times, help to restart the network after a system-wide failure (blackout). Additionally they can provide frequency control and ancillary services (FCAS) that respond to unpredictable variations in demand and generation.
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