Battery Energy Storage System: The Precious Resource Of The Future Power Grid

The decline in the cost of available technology has fueled interest in energy storage in an unprecedented way. The price of lithium-ion batteries has fallen by about 80% in the past five years, making it possible to integrate storage into solar systems. Battery Storage Systems are becoming one of the key solutions to effectively integrate a large number of solar and wind renewable energy sources in the global power system.

"As costs drop and the deployment of renewable energy increases, energy storage systems are expected to become a valuable resource for the future grid, especially when the power system allows storage battery systems to provide multiple grid services at the same time and solar power generation capacity is higher. "

This is the conclusion drawn by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in its recently released analysis report on the "Future of Energy Storage (SFS)" project. The report describes the huge market potential for long-term energy storage (up to 12 hours) in the U.S. power system to deploy grid-scale long-term energy storage by 2050.

What is Battery Storage?

Battery storage technology is essential for accelerating the replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy. battery storage systems in electric power systems will play an increasingly critical role between green energy supply and response to power demand. A battery storage or battery energy storage system (BESS) is a device that stores energy from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind energy, and then releases it when customers need it most.

Electrochemical Energy Storage (through battery storage systems) provides the greatest energy and power capacity (MW and MWh ratings) flexibility in most application markets; from the kWh level behind the meter application to 50-100 MWh peak replacement , And then to large-scale projects that support the delay of transmission and distribution infrastructure. The US and global energy storage technology markets will expand rapidly, and most market research shows that deployments in all market segments are rapidly increasing. 

According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, by 2025, the global grid energy storage market is expected to grow more than tenfold, with nearly 80% of the growth coming from outside the United States. Further reducing costs and improving market systems, and monetizing the benefits of energy storage fairly, can help accelerate this adoption. The accelerated growth of grid storage systems using lithium-ion batteries can be directly attributed to the significant reduction in the cost of lithium-ion batteries.

With the substantial increase in lithium-ion manufacturing capacity, battery storage cost-level have fallen below US$200/kWh; however, compared with recent cost reductions, further reductions in battery-level costs may be difficult to achieve. The capital cost of the battery energy storage system cost is only part of the total cost equation.

Why Energy Storage Systems Are Deployed?

For residentials and businesses, battery grid storage is a means of storing electricity generated on site, controlling utility bills, and maintaining electricity during grid outages. For remote areas-mines, military bases, indigenous villages-grid scale battery storage provides energy security and limits the demand for expensive and polluting diesel generators. For public utilities and energy storage companies, the battery electric storage system fills the gap in the variable output of wind and solar power plants, prevents the waste of excess power, and helps maintain the reliability of the power system.

Currently, the utility scale battery storage system is mainly deployed in Australia, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and other European countries. In terms of capacity, one of the large storage batteries is the Tesla 100 MW / 129 MWh Lithium ion Battery Storage project at Hornsdale Wind Farm in Australia. In New York State, USA, an advanced demonstration project using 4 MW / 40 MWh lithium ion battery storage shows that operators can reduce grid congestion for nearly 400 hours and save up to US$2.03 million in fuel costs.

Therefore, the utility-scale stationary energy storage dominates the global energy storage. But by 2030, Small battery storage is expected to increase significantly, supplementing the application of grid power storage.

Will Frazier, an analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the lead author of the report, pointed out: "In our research, we have found that in various simulation scenarios, long-term energy storage has huge market potential. In order to achieve the optimal cost. For the deployment of large battery storage system, the power system needs to allow the large battery storage system to provide capacity and energy time-shifted grid services."

In this work, the researchers added new functions to the capacity expansion model of the regional energy deployment system (ReEDS) of the laboratory to accurately represent the value of the Large Battery Storage System when the grid service is allowed to be provided, which is a construction The complex challenges faced by the model. Since the value of the energy storage system largely depends on the continuous discharge time, the regional energy deployment system (ReEDS) simulates the operation of the system once an hour.

The researchers used the Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) model to simulate two sets of scenarios-one allows the energy storage system to provide multiple grid services, and the other restricts the power services that the power storage batteries can provide. All scenarios use different cost and performance assumptions for battery energy storage systems, wind power generation facilities, solar power generation facilities, and natural gas power generation facilities to determine the key drivers of energy storage deployment.

The report found:

• In all scenarios, the deployment of energy storage for utility scale battery storage will increase significantly. By 2050, assuming moderate cost and performance, the total installed capacity deployed will exceed 125GW.

• The electric energy storage system initially deployed has a relatively short continuous discharge time (up to 4 hours), and then gradually extends the continuous discharge time (up to 12 hours) as the deployment increases, mainly because the deployment duration is longer. The cost of a long energy storage system is currently more expensive.

• In 2030, the annual installed capacity of battery energy storage systems for various applications will range from 1GW to 30GW.

• By 2050, the installed capacity of battery energy storage systems deployed annually in the United States will reach more than 7GW.

• The standby power systems market is difficult to promote the deployment of energy storage, because the study found that the overall market potential of the service is limited.

• Deploying more solar power generation facilities shortens the peak period and reduces the need for battery storage facilities to increase energy storage capacity. The microgrid energy storage system with shorter continuous discharge time will become a competitive source of peak capacity, which can effectively reduce Cost of energy storage deployment.

• Over time, the value of energy storage systems in providing peak capacity increases as the load increases and existing power generation facilities are decommissioned.

• More solar power storage options create a more volatile energy price curve and increase the potential of energy storage systems for time-shifting. As with peak capacity, as the penetration rate of the solar powered backup generator increases, the value of the energy time shift will increase over time.

"We believe that storage effectively plays an important role in every future we see," said Eric, The CEO of BSLBATT Battery Storage Company. "And it's not just one or two GWs...but tens to hundreds of GWs."

Through the battery energy storage system, we can use energy more efficiently and minimize carbon emissions. To limit global warming to below 2°C, energy storage capacity needs to increase from 140 GW in 2014 to 450 GW in 2050. Today, only 3-4% of the electricity generated by the global utility-scale grid-connected energy storage market is stored. Experts say that battery storage large scale is the key to expanding the coverage of renewable energy and accelerating the transition to a carbon-free grid. "Battery energy storage systems are actually a real bridge to a clean energy future."