Comments on: Energy Storage Costs To Halve & Market To Boom, Study Finds

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 17:17:00 +0000

Perhaps you aren’t up to date with what is happening to the price of solar. It’s getting incredibly affordable and all signs are that it will keep dropping in price. Latest projections I’ve seen is that the cost of manufacturing panels in China will drop by 1/3rd over the next two years.

More and more people are going to be installing solar. It’s getting hard to make an economic argument for not putting solar on ones roof.

And, I would expect, Australia’s recent heat waves, fires and floods are convincing more people that something has to be done about climate change. If they can save themselves some money and do a little something to help the climate problem there’s going to be a lot of motivation to getting some panels on the roof.

A couple more bad weather years and Australia may find itself experiencing great public pressure to drastically cut coal use.

We, all countries, need to be addressing the storage issue. Not because we need a lot right now or even by 2015, but because we’ve got some learning to do in order to be able to install storage when we really do need it. We can store electricity, but we need to figure out how to store it cheaper. And we need to start building up the companies that will do the manufacturing and installation.

By: TOM

TOM — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 09:50:00 +0000

I don’t see why Australia needs to get focussed on storage. Daily or weekly price volatility is so low that even pumped hydro isn’t going to be making much money. Once we get to say 30% renewables the price will vary a lot more and there will be an economic incentive for flexibility of any kind. Although at that point, storage will still have to compete against fossil and demand management.

By: Otis11

Otis11 — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 03:55:00 +0000

“smart hot water” devices – yes yes yes yes yes.

We don’t need nearly as much traditional storage as everyone seems to think! Employ “smart storage” by shifting load where available and you’re halfway there. If every water heater sold today was smart and well insulated we’d be on a great trajectory! Input other smart devices, couple in EV overnight charging, and solar power to level out the peak power output and you’re gold!

Think about it – solar reliably drops the peak pricing and makes two significantly smaller morning and evening “peaks”. Shift water heater loads off of these peaks, throw in variable EV charging (it’s plugged in all night put only need a portion to charge – tell the grid what that is and the soonest it’s likely to be unplugged and let that determine what times it charges through the night) and other similar technologies and you can not only smooth the curve, but allow it to be dynamically shift-able! (Yes, I make up words)