the convoluted economics of storing energy - energy storage system price

As I reported in the newspaper on Tuesday, some companies believe that a renewable energy source will open a window for another energy source --
Solar photovoltaic panels that convert sunlight directly into electricity will increase the power grid's demand for a solar energy that can be stored.
This will be solar thermal power, which takes advantage of the heat from the sun and converts it into steam as needed to generate power, especially when the sun disappears behind clouds or drops below the horizon.
Electricity is unique among the main commodities because it must be produced and consumed at the same time.
Of course, it can be stored in batteries, but now, the cost of this technology is so high that batteries are mainly used for smooth production from renewable energy and not to be saved until later.
The economics of plants that can store a lot of energy is a bit mysterious.
On the simplest level, the idea is to collect the heat of the sun when it is available and save it until the electricity price reaches its peak.
At the moment, however, when the sun is high in the sky, the price will peak because that is the demand for electricity, mainly for air --
Conditioning is the highest.
Some experts believe that it will take several years for the power system to be saturated with solar PV, making energy storage valuable.
As the world exists, what you do in storage is becoming more and more important
Peak potential of pricing is generated and transferred to off-
George Stinger, director of the Renewable Energy Policy Program, a non-profit organization in Washington, said.
However, some solar thermal power plants with storage space have been put into use. in Europe —
For example, a factory built by Torresol Energy in Seville, Spain.
The factory is very small, less than 20 MW.
As I explained in the article, four are on a building or drawing board in the southwestern United States.
Their supporters are betting that photovoltaic power will become cheaper and will cut electricity prices during the day.
But from a financial point of view, energy storage can be a good deal, and there are other reasons.
One is that the two largest renewable sources of wind and solar energy, at least according to the standards of traditional generators, have the tendency to accelerate and then fall off quickly.
If other parts of the system have to respond, then many plants that fuel coal or natural gas will have to increase production or cut production quickly.
If the proportion of energy available from renewable sources is small, it is not a big problem;
If solar energy accounts for 2% of production, the rest of the system can be compensated if it falls by half in a few minutes.
But if solar power accounts for 20%, there will be more potential problems.
Paul Denholm is a researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.
Recently, it is estimated that due to the occurrence of photovoltaic power generation at the wrong time or bringing too many unstable factors to the system, 5% of the annual photovoltaic power generation may have to be closed.
Adding storage space could be worth 0, he said.
3 cents per kilowatthour. (
That sounds small, but it's just a small fraction of the national average retail price of kilowatts --
About 11 cents an hour. )
It is more worth mentioning that when needed, the value of the source that can be relied on, rather than when the sun shines; that’s worth 0.
He calculated it, 7 cents to 2 cents.
There are other ways to store power, but all of them require payment for equipment and energy. The âx80x9cround-
The trip efficiency of the solar thermal system is that the ratio of the recovered energy to the input energy is within the range of 95%.
This is much higher than the largest traditional form of storage, pumping water, including pumping water to the mountains, allowing it to turn the turbine and generate electricity on the way down the hill later.
Another technique is to store energy by compressing air.
But with these two kinds of energy, the energy stored may come from coal.
This will be detrimental to the environment and will not help utilities meet their quota for renewable energy.
Earlier versions of this article did not fully mention the adoption of solar thermal power plants with storage capacity.
Several such factories have been opened in Spain;
A factory near Seville is not the only one.
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