The market demand for grid storage of electrical power will skyrocket over the next five years, spiking from about $2.8 billion in 2012 to $113.5 billion in 2017, according to a new study from Lux Research Inc.
The study highlights the fact that as renewable power grows, utilities and commercial sites will one day need large back-up facilities to supply energy when the wind's not blowing and the sun's not shining. "In most regions, intermittent renewables will need to have some type of storage or new infrastructure if they're ever going reach huge numbers -- 10 percent or 20 percent or 30 percent of our overall power," Brian Warshay, lead author of the new study and a research associate for Lux Research, told us.
Battery farms can store energy in low-megawatt capacities. (Source: Electric Power Research Institute)
The report, "Grid Storage Under the Microscope: Using Local Knowledge to Forecast Global Demand," contends that five countries -- the US, Japan, China, UK, and Germany -- will account for about 70 percent of that overall demand. The US will be the biggest of those, with a demand of more than $20 billion per year by about 2017.
The study reinforces what many experts have said in recent years -- that wind and solar will hit sticking points when they reach a level between 10 percent and 20 percent of the country's overall electricity production (currently, the two compose about 4 percent to 5 percent of the electricity produced in the US). The reason is that wind and solar are intermittent sources -- that is, they produce electricity only when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining. Since, in most cases, electricity is consumed moments after it's created, wind and solar would require back-up storage to prevent rolling brown-outs and black-outs.
Lux's study looked at the use of emerging technologies, such as batteries and flywheels, for use in grid energy storage. Candidate technologies included lithium-ion batteries, advanced lead-acid batteries, molten salt batteries, flow batteries, and flywheels. Most of those technologies would be used in giant warehouses containing about 10MW to 100MW in battery capacity, Warshay said. "We don't foresee a lot of centralized, large-scale, gigawatt-level storage," he told us. "We see it happening in tens and hundreds of megawatts, where it makes sense."
Warshay added that those smaller-scale systems could be employed on the community level, for storage of wind and solar power, or on the commercial level. "Commercial systems pose an exciting opportunity for storage, especially in industries that have a high demand for reliable electricity," he said. "Companies at risk of losing a lot of money during a brown-out or black-out would be candidates for this." Such companies might have onsite storage facilities designed to take up the slack during black-outs, he said.
As correctly stated, pumped storage has been the number one option for large-scale storage. It remains the number one option. There are today 75 applications for new pumped storage projects in the United States, most concentrated in the west but some in the east. Only the best of these are developable, and those best represent quite a few thousands of megawatts. The scale of these projects - from 280 MW to over 1,000 MW - is large, but so is the scale of renewable energy and the need for new firm capacity toward the end of the decade. Cost per kW varies widely from site to site, but the best will be under $2,000/kW, and some under $1,200/kW. That, combined with storage durations exceeding 12 hours and lifetimes of 75+ years, give pumped storage the lowest capital cost per kWh (with the exception of conventional CAES - see below).
As for the article's note on siting difficulty - that is not a new issue; quite a few pumped storage projects from the olden days never got built due to poor siting choices, environmental concerns, etc. Today, however, a new generation of closed-loop projects are under development, many of which avoid similar issues.
On Mr. Murray's comment - the cost of pumped hydro is not much related to the price of land because its footprint is pretty small.
As for Compressed Air Energy Storage - the only rival to pumped storage at large scale. More modular (generally, units of 135 MW); no FERC licensing required; and somewhat lower capex. CAES also has the lowest cost per kWh of duration of any storage technology - if using salt caverns. Where such geology is available, it's relatively easy to expand storage capacity to levels allowing for semi-weekly storage. The newer CAES technologies have only marginal advantages over existing CAES in areas of suitable geology. While they would eliminate the natural gas component, fuel use for existing CAES is already extremely low, and the round-trip electrical efficiency would be about the same. Using pipes for storage will also certainly be more expensive than using caverns, so while pipes would allow for wider geographic siting options, the advantage of long duration storage would likely be compromised. CAES without natural gas also shifts the economics such that it becomes more dependent on off-peak/peak price spread, which has been shrinking, rather than on moderate amount of natural gas, which will be inexpensive for some time.
As this need grows, and it looks like it certainly will with advances in alternative energies, I would imagine there could be public/private pumped hydro projects. Certainly a lake would serve the public in many ways.
Thanks for this good bit of information, Matthew. Just how big is the footprint in pumped storage? Is this something that can be done in tanks, or does it necessitate a lake?
The footprint will vary from project to project. Almost the entirety of the footprint consists of the reservoirs; everything else, except transmission, is below ground. For some of our typical sites, reservoirs are typically 60-120 acres each in surface area. So let's say 250 total acres, compact. Tanks with volumes of thousands of acre-feet, required to match the scale of a pumped storage plant and provide 8+ hours of storage, using normally available heads, would be too expensive and generally not necessary. There was one such project proposed in California, some time ago. Ideally one finds sites with topography that minimizes the construction involved in reservoir creation. Occasionally there are unusual opportunites like the newly proposed Maysville Pumped Storage project in Kentucky, which would use existing excavated mine space 1,000' below the surface as the lower reservoir. This dramatically lowers the cost of the project.
Thanks for the info, Matthew. I would think pumped hydro would lend itself to public/private projects, since lakes provide recreational opportunities for cities. Any city could use an extra lake. Have you seen public/private projects?
Well, sometimes pumped storage reservoirs (the really big ones) can be used for recreation. Others may not be, as the fluctuations and currents as the project drains and then re-fills don't make the best environments for fish. Plus most new pumped storage sites are quite far from urban areas.
So the whole notion they you have a beautiful lake for pumping hydro is not necessarily the case. I understand. This is an industrial function that isn't necessarily conducive to consumer usage.
Lux and Pike don'tknow what they are talking about. Both write papers that most always are wrong. Same for the EIA, IEA which past data is good but can't predict worth a dam ;^P
Take this one. They left out the recent tech that makes GS at least by utilities moot. It's NG turbine Cogen units that can throttle to 50% eff reming the need for storage.
Next RE doesn't need storage on uility level because RE mostly happens when needed, solar or on call, hydro, CSP, biomass. The only truly intermitent RE is wind and only big wind far away has that.
So just where is this great demand other than armchair experts dreaming it up?
We already have batteries for under $1/kwhr and have for more than 10 yrs yet they haven't been deployed. Why?
Fact is no market because the utilities already handle massively changing demand and have for over 100 yrs and that in reality is the same as intermitant supply, both handled the same way rather easily.
The only extra cost was running enough equipment to handle expected surges but the changed with throttlable Gas turbines and retrofit kits for older ones.
That plus demand like controlling when EV charger charge, etc solves 99.9% of grid needs. Fact is you can't build enough capacity to make a real difference due to volume of power used.
Get a sub to Pennenergy newsletters of your choice is the actual utility experts info and utility people running the plants instead of those who talk about things they no little.
In regard to Pumped Hydro, in situations where there is constant river flow with spare energy it is agreat idea, but where the energy is all coming from the renewable source just to be stored, efficiencies can be a bit low, - the Pump will not be much beter than 80% and the Generator also, particularly adding pipe losses etc. so suddenly the cost of the renewable energy jumps alarmingly due to the wastage.
With Batteries, particularly lead acid, - preferably Tubular Positive plates, efficiency of 98% and large Inverter efficiencies also of 98% are achievable so most of your power is still there. Cheers, Geoff Thomas.
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