Global Energy Storage Capacity to Multiply Massively in 10 Years

November 15th, 2011 by Joshua S Hill

A new report has shown that the total storage capacity worldwide will increase a hundred-fold over the next 10 years, pushing the number from 121 megawatts (MW) in 2011 to 12,353 MW in 2021.

That number equates to a growth of just over $122 billion of investment in energy storage projects over the same timeframe.

Traditionally, electricity grids don’t have a lot of room for storage. What is generated is passed through the grid and, if it is not used, it disappears. Including energy storage allows grid operators a new way to manage their grids more effectively, but even then, the storage mechanisms that currently exist have been fraught with issues.

“Inflexible electricity market structures, high capital costs for energy storage projects, a disconnection between the owners of assets and the entities which benefit from such projects, and instability in the grid,” according to a Pike Research report entitled ‘Energy Storage on the Grid’, are some of the “factors currently limiting the growth of the energy storage sector.”

Older-styled storage mechanisms such as pumped storage and compressed air have been around for decades, but they’re getting a new lease on life and, together with newer technologies, they are being demonstrated in North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East.

“Traditionally, grid operators have only had access to generation assets, such as natural gas peakers, to balance electricity flows across the grid by adding power to it,” says research analyst Anissa Dehamna. “Energy storage provides grid operators with an alternative to traditional grid management, offering a variety of technologies that together are well-suited for up to 17 applications of energy storage.”

Source: Pike Research
Image Source: -5m on Flickr

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Tags: Electricity, electricity storage, Grid, storage

About the Author

Joshua S Hill I'm a Christian, a nerd, a geek, and I believe that we're pretty quickly directing planet-Earth into hell in a handbasket! I also write for Fantasy Book Review (.co.uk), and can be found writing articles for a variety of other sites. Check me out at about.me for more.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Ralph-Perez/100000768523346 Ralph Perez

Consumer owned solar rooftops will employ a huge chunk of power conversion within the next few years, but, our data centers will need more data transmission energy. The rooftop power will be stored in consumer owned electric car and home backup batteries, but can also be shared with the grid when necessary. It will be good to see consumers having a $0 utility bill, a $0 gasoline charge using the free energy of sunshine, and they can use these extra funds to strengthen other areas of the economy.
- Anonymous
  
  I just don’t see home battery systems happening. And I say that as someone who has been off the grid for over 20 years.
  
  Vehicle to grid, that makes sense to me. Car owners are going to be purchasing the batteries anyway and then using them <20% of the time. Might as well rent them out as long as the numbers work.
  
  But I don't see homeowners purchasing several thousand dollars of batteries just to store some power in case the grid goes down. It's going to me more cost effective to establish large industrial scale storage.
Anonymous

Well, not quite accurate. There’s no way to make electricity “disappear”. Grid managers are constantly working to balance supply and demand.

We’ve got about 25GW of storage in the US, mostly pump-up along with a small amount of compressed air (CAES). It was built to ‘time shift’ electricity created by nuclear reactors from off-peak hours to peak demand hours. (We never seem to include the cost of that storage when we talk about nuclear.)

What we’ve done in the past to deal with supply/demand differences is to largely use dispatchable power sources. Hydro is very dispatchable, it can be turned on and off very rapidly. Next in line would be gas turbines “peaker plants” which can go from dead stop to full power in 10-15 minutes. And even coal plants can be ramped and down to some extent to meet demand.

With wind and solar becoming larger players we will need some storage to even things out. But not a lot for a while. Right now the US grid is fed by over 30% hydro and natural gas. They can fill in gaps when the Sun isn’t shining and wind not blowing. Once wind and solar get to be major players (>25% for the East Coast grid and >30% for the Western grid) we’ll need more storage.

Building some now is a good idea. As we build we tend to learn how to do the job cheaper. Getting storage to the point where it is cheaper than natural gas generation would be a great thing. One more way cut the flow of CO2 into our atmosphere.