power grid stability: the most efficient solutions - electricity storage

With all the discussion about grid-based energy storage for renewable energy integration, these two cheapest and most mature solutions have been ignored.
They are also the most overlooked solution for investors fascinated by clean technology stories.
A few years ago I put some charts together to show this as dramatically as possible.
I investigated the available data for energy storage and other grid integration technologies for existing installation costs and calculated the average cost per installation kW (power)
, Every installation of kWh (energy)
Round-trip efficiency (
Percentage of energy lost through a round
Trip charge and discharge. )
The results are shown in the following figure.
Keep in mind that at this point the data has been a few years old and all the numbers are similar as they are picked out from a variety of different sources.
The chart shown is on the log-
Log scale, so in terms of power supply to the grid, the technology at the top of the graphics is 10 times cheaper than the technology on the horizontal line, and the rightmost technology is 100 times cheaper than the technology on the vertical line. The most cost-
The effective technology is closer to the upper right corner of the graph, and there are larger bubbles (
High efficiency round trip. )
The most concerned technology of large-scale energy storage
About pumped storage technology [PHES]
Compressed air energy storage [CAES]
, And hot storage of molten salt used with concentrated solar energy [CSP-Tower]
It can be clearly seen that both the battery and the mobile battery are superior to the battery in the energy storage application.
Please note that the numbers are similar.
PHES are shown on my chart as slightly infeasible than CAES, but the balance of opinions is good for PHES economy.
The CAES bubble may exaggerate the feasibility of this technology: there are only two operating CAES plants, which leads to considerable construction costs for future plants.
Similarly, the economic benefits of PHES may be underestimated.
Each pumping station is unique and has its own economic benefits, and the best stations may be much better than shown.
These locations will have existing reservoirs that can be lifted at will to reflect the current imbalance in power supply.
I discuss PHES in more detail here. Hydrogen [H2]
, Mobile batteries and conventional batteries are very expensive as an energy storage medium, unless it is impractical in remote power, transmission, demand response, and PHES or thermal storage.
Although the economics of large-scale energy storage of hydrogen is good compared with that of molten salt thermal storage, the high cost of fuel cells makes hydrogen storage almost useless as a power resource, low round-trip efficiency means that converting power back and forth into hydrogen will lose a lot of energy.
Large hydrogen tanks are relatively cheap to build, but the process of filling and emptying these tanks is too slow to be realistic as a grid-based storage solution.
However, all these solutions dwarf the virtual energy storage provided by high-voltage transmission.
When an area has excess power, selling it to a neighboring area makes more sense than trying to store it locally.
Can be re-transmitted using the same transmission line after a few hours or months
When the relative price of the two regions is the opposite, the import of electricity makes the transmission line to the adjacent area like a battery connected to an unlimited capacity. Stable power grid (Power)
Technology although the energy storage technology on the right side of the chart helps to eliminate the long-term imbalance between power supply and demand, but short-term
Long-term changes in supply and demand are best addressed by cheap power resources at the top of the chart.
The faster the need for smooth fluctuations, the more important the technology can absorb or deliver energy quickly, and even less important, a large amount of energy is stored for a long time.
The three efficient technologies used to generate rapid bursts of high power but not much energy storage capacity are flywheel (
At present, the deployment of Beacon Power is in the early stage (BCON))
Magnetic energy storage]SMES]
A technology provided by super energy in the United States (NASDAQ:AMSC)
It turns out that this keeps the grid stable when events such as lightning strikes overload the grid
Capacitors provided by Maxwell technology (NASDAQ:MXWL)
This is usually too expensive for grid-based applications, but start finding a niche in the vehicle.
These techniques are not shown on the chart because I need to extend the longitudinal axis more than one order of magnitude up.
In the existing technology, lithiumIon [Li-ion], Nickel-Metal Hydride [NiMH]and Lead-Acid [PbA]
Battery performance is acceptable in remote grid stabilization applications with few other options, but all of this is overshadowed by the low cost and effectiveness of demand response.
Demand response is a set of technologies that allow utilities to require energy users to reduce energy use when their power generation capacity is difficult to meet current demand.
As with transmission, but unlike batteries, mobile batteries, thermal energy storage, PHES or CAES, the electrical energy storage provided by Demand Response technology is virtual: when the customer temporarily turns on the thermostat in response to a signal from the utility, the use of the energy-cooled building is postponed until after the event occurs, the customer puts the thermostat back into the usual setting.
This avoids the cost of physical storage and makes demand response the most economical way to meet short-term requirements
Long-term peak energy demand (
For example, in the hot summer when the demand for air conditioning is large)
Short-term supply shortages such as power plants failing to access the Internet at scheduled times or sudden drop in power output.
The recent water and electricity surplus of the Bonneville Electric Power Association, a heavy snow and a rapid melting, caused the Bonneville Electric Power Association (BPA)
Wind power shut down at Columbia Canyon for several hours a night.
There are wind farm owners here (
Who will lose the federal tax credit for energy production
Go to court.
Shuangphenol a claims that it is necessary to shut down the wind farm, but the owner of the wind farm claims that there are two cheap solutions to deal with excess power: transmission in unused Canada and Southern California and the possibility of paying customers moving energy consumption from day to night.
Both solutions cost a certain amount of money, and their current refusal to accept wind power at night is free.
That's why BPA chose not to perform the contract with the wind farm.
While this makes economic sense for BPA, it sets a bad precedent because BPA has no plans to sign such a contract in the first place.
Should wind farm owners bear the financial consequences of BPA poor planning?
If they know that bisphenol a will not comply with these contracts, they may spend their capital in other parts of the country, where the season of the most productive wind force is inconsistent with the season of the most productive water and electricity.
It seems to me that this commotion is more about industry players competing for positions than the wind is too unstable for the grid or incompatible with salmon. Both Demand-
Response and delivery are existing cheap ways to deal with potential power excess, and no matter what the court decides, demand response and high-voltage transmission are key for wind energy to fully realize its economic and development potential.
In fact, demand CEO Tim Healey
In a recent interview, response company EnerNOC said his company has been helping BPA to shut down some customer equipment at night, thus reducing some excess power.
Investeentsi has written a lot about transmission stocks in my "strong grid" series.
I included two exchanges.
Transaction Demand response company, EnerNOC (NASDAQ:ENOC)And Comverge (NASDAQ:COMV)
In my recent list of 10 clean energy stocks, I will buy them now because their prices look very attractive.
I have already written about the world energy solution (NASDAQ:XWES)
Last week, I spoke with EnerNOC CEO Tim Healy about his company to prepare for the article.
I plan to follow this in articles about Comverge and EnergyConnect (OTC:ECNG), an OTC-traded demand-
Response provider.
Disclosure: Chang Kang, ENOC, BCON.
Statement: past performance is not a guarantee or reliable indicator of future performance.
This article contains the author's current views, which are subject to change without notice.
This article is for reference only.
Forecasts, estimates and certain information contained herein shall not be considered as investment proposals or suggestions for any particular security, strategy or investment product.
The information contained herein is obtained from sources deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
Published in AltEnergyStocks.