In September 2017, Southern Australia suffered a state-wide blackout, sparking energy security debates around the intermittency of renewable energy. The solution came via a tweet from Elon Musk: "100 days from contract signature or it's free". Musk was referring to a 100MW battery storage system tha Contact online >>
In September 2017, Southern Australia suffered a state-wide blackout, sparking energy security debates around the intermittency of renewable energy. The solution came via a tweet from Elon Musk: "100 days from contract signature or it''s free". Musk was referring to a 100MW battery storage system that would be installed quickly and help alleviate the pressure on a grid with high generation but low transmission and distribution connections. Tesla went on to successfully deliver the battery storage system, with a further 350MW procured since then, bringing the total to 450MW. However, in July 2021 a fire incident during storage system commissioning highlighted the importance of testing, monitoring and strict safety controls of these systems.
Much like Australia, many other nations experience such power outages, including the US and Indonesia, with dire consequences for business activities and compromising key infrastructure, such as transportation and telecommunications. Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) can play a critical role in preventing the human and financial cost of large-scale power outages by plugging the intermittent renewable energy supply and alleviating transmission and distribution (T&D) congestion, a major cause of blackouts. This allows for grid independence from renewables and flexible storage, reducing peak demand and increasing grid stability.
Renewable energy storage also reduces reliance on fossil fuels by facilitating system-wide energy orchestration through peak-shaving, integrating distributed energy resources and reducing carbon emissions supporting countries on the "race to zero". Lithium-ion batteries are currently the preferred choice of technology for these systems due to lower cost, broader understanding of technology and greater energy density.
With the cost of electric batteries dropping by 89% over the past decade, driven by the spill over of electric vehicle (EV) battery technology advancements, the market is set to boom in the coming years. It is forecasted to represent 40% of total battery demand by 2030. Furthermore, as regulation progresses, the expansion of ancillary services and flexibility markets will enable the monetisation of storage assets via "value stacking", reducing payback periods by four to six years.
However, quantifying the value of a BESS can be challenging due to future market changes and lack of long term historical data, making it difficult to evaluate the potential revenue streams and costs. This is exacerbated by the complexity of deploying long-term BESS with optimized market participation. Software, a critical component in BESS, can address these challenges by modelling short and long term battery performance (including ageing) and automating optimized market participation to maximize revenues and minimize damage to cells and modules.
A further concern is that the supply of raw materials for batteries (nickel, cobalt, lithium, and graphite) may not be able to meet increased demand, but longer battery lifetimes, new chemistries (e.g. Cobalt free) and improved battery recycling can mitigate this challenge.
Technology plays a critical role in overcoming the challenges associated with implementing and operating BESS. Key solutions include:
BESS are essential in enabling grid resilience and integrating renewable assets to reduce CO2 emissions and support global efforts to achieve net-zero pledges. Digital twins to support bankability, optimization through AIoT, and battery monitoring and analytics can prevent accidents, enhance the economic viability of adopting BESS, and act as a catalyst to ensure governments and corporations meet net-zero targets. Much like Elon''s project in Australia, similar BESS projects are nearly doubling in total installed capacity every two years. The hardware and financial incentives are in place, now AIoT technology can help expedite deployment, ensure safety and boost ROI of such projects supporting a faster race to zero.
Efficient energy storage is a vital part of efforts to break our long-held dependence on fossil fuels and embrace a cleaner future.
As part of the global energy transition, a number of battery technologies are being pioneered that can store surplus renewable power and boost efforts to decarbonize sectors ranging from data centres to road transport.
The race to decarbonize is putting severe strains on the supply of rare metals and minerals needed for battery storage and other energy transition technologies.
A group of MIT chemists aims to circumvent the electric vehicle (EV) industry''s metals shortage by developing a lithium-ion battery that uses a cathode based on organic materials, in place of using elements like cobalt or nickel.
Research shows the new design could be produced at a lower cost than conventional lithium-ion batteries, but have capacity to conduct electricity at a similar rate to cobalt batteries.
"It is already competitive with incumbent technologies, and it can save a lot of the cost and pain and environmental issues related to mining the metals that currently go into batteries," said Mircea Dincă, the W.M. Keck Professor of Energy at MIT, referring to the new design.
UpLink Top Innovator, Evolectric Incorporated, creates purpose-built vehicle and battery solutions that aim to increase take-up of e-mobility transport.
The US-based company has developed a method of extending the life of existing fossil-fuelled commercial vehicles by upgrading them to smart, 100% battery-powered electric vehicles.
Integrating circular economy principles into contemporary EV technology offers vehicle fleet owners a way to upgrade their existing commercial vehicles with sustainability in mind, without the expense of buying new vehicles.
Nature can lend a hand when it comes to finding ways to store surplus energy from renewable sources, which is mostly generated on a use-it-or-lose-it basis.
Vatajankoski power plant in Finland houses the world''s first commercial-scale sand battery, which uses 100 tonnes of low-grade sand of too-poor quality to be used in construction.
Power from Finland''s wind and solar power installations runs a resistance heater inside the sand battery, which generates heat that is distributed through heat exchange pipes by a fan to keep the thickly insulated sand warm.
At a maximum 600C constant temperature, the sand battery can store 8 megawatts of thermal energy, which is enough to provide heating and hot water to about 100 nearby homes and a community swimming pool when supplemented by grid power.
Although the battery stores between 5 to 10 times less energy (per unit volume) than most chemical batteries, no chemical reaction takes place so it is non-flammable, easy and cheap to maintain and has a much lower environmental impact than lithium-ion alternatives.
By 2028, renewable energy could account for 42% of global electricity generation, according to an International Energy Agency forecast, emphasizing the importance of efficient electricity storage solutions.
Versatility sits at the heart of the lithium-ion phosphate batteries developed by Uplink tech start-up Posh Electric, which was one of the winners of the UpLink Yes San Francisco, Urban Sustainability Challenge.
Battery docks for use in camper vans, RVs, mobile homes and more, provide a portable and sustainable alternative to diesel-powered generators used to power on-the-road plug-in appliances, such as induction hobs.
The company embraces a circular economy approach to manufacturing, which focuses on recycling and reusing existing battery parts.
"We are trying to make any storage of batteries in particular more accessible and very easy to use. Our mantra is that the batteries should be plug-and-play and we want to make batteries as a drop-in replacement for portable generators," company founder and CEO, Wesley Zheng, told the World Economic Forum.
"When we first design the batteries, we have already taken into consideration how we can efficiently disassemble the battery at the end of its life," he said.
Energy consumption and production contribute to two-thirds of global emissions, and 81% of the global energy system is still based on fossil fuels, the same percentage as 30 years ago. Plus, improvements in the energy intensity of the global economy (the amount of energy used per unit of economic activity) are slowing. In 2018 energy intensity improved by 1.2%, the slowest rate since 2010.
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