dotlah! dotlah!
  • Cities
  • Technology
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Society
  • Science
  • About
Social Links
  • zedreviews.com
  • citi.io
  • aster.cloud
  • liwaiwai.com
  • guzz.co.uk
  • atinatin.com
0 Likes
0 Followers
0 Subscribers
dotlah!
  • Cities
  • Technology
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Society
  • Science
  • About
  • Technology

How Cheap Must Batteries Get For Renewables To Compete With Fossil Fuels?

  • August 28, 2019
Total
0
Shares
0
0
0

While solar and wind power are rapidly becoming cost-competitive with fossil fuels in areas with lots of sun and wind, they still can’t provide the 24/7 power we’ve become used to. At present, that’s not big a problem because the grid still features plenty of fossil fuel plants that can provide constant baseload or ramp up to meet surges in demand.

But there’s broad agreement that we need to dramatically decarbonize our energy supplies if we’re going to avoid irreversible damage to the climate. That will mean getting rid of the bulk of on-demand, carbon-intensive power plants we currently rely on to manage our grid.

Alternatives include expanding transmission infrastructure to shuttle power from areas where the wind is blowing to areas where it isn’t, or managing demand using financial incentive to get people to use less energy during peak hours. But most promising is pairing renewable energy with energy storage to build up reserves for when the sun stops shining.

The approach is less complicated than trying to redesign the grid, say the authors of a paper in <emJoule, but also makes it possible to shift much more power around than demand management. A key question that hasn’t been comprehensively dealt with, though, is how cheap energy storage needs to get to make this feasible.

Studies have looked at storage costs to make renewable energy arbitrage (using renewables to charge storage when electricity prices are low and then reselling it when demand and prices are higher) competitive in today’s grid. But none have looked at how cheap it needs to get to maintain a grid powered predominantly by renewables.

Little was known about what costs would actually be competitive and how these costs compare to the storage technologies currently being developed,” senior author Jessika Trancik, an associate professor of energy studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in a press release. “So, we decided to address this issue head on.”

The researchers decided to investigate the two leading forms of renewable energy, solar and wind. They looked at how a mix of the two combined with storage technology could be used to fulfill a variety of roles on the grid, including providing baseload, meeting spikes in demand in peak hours, and gradually varying output to meet fluctuating demand.

Unlike previous studies that generally only investigate on timescales of a few years, they looked at what would be required to reliably meet demand over 20 years in 4 locations with different wind and solar resources: Arizona, Iowa, Massachusetts, and Texas.

They found that providing baseload power at a price comparable to a nuclear power station would require energy storage capacity costs to fall below $20 per kilowatt hour (kWh). To match a gas-powered plant designed to meet peak surges would require costs to fall to $5/kWh.

That’s a daunting target. There are some storage technologies that can keep costs below the $20/kWh mark, such as using excess power to pump water up to the top of a hydroelectric dam or compress air that can later be used to run a turbine. But both of these take up a lot of space and require specific geographic features, like mountains or underground caverns, that make them hard to apply broadly.

Despite rapid reductions in costs, today’s leading battery technology—lithium-ion—has only just dipped below $200/kWh, suggesting conventional batteries are still some way from being able to meet this demand. Alternative technologies such as flow batteries could potentially meet the cost demands in the mid-term, the authors say, but they’re still largely experimental.

However, the researchers also investigated the implications of allowing renewables to fail to meet demand just 5 percent of the time over the 20 years, with other technologies filling the gap. In that scenario, renewables plus storage could match the cost-effectiveness of nuclear baseload at just $150/kWh—well within the near-term reach of lithium-ion technology, which is predicted to hit the $100/kWh mark in the middle of the next decade.

Questions remain over whether already-strained lithium-ion supply chains could deal with the demand required to support an entire national grid. The authors also admit their analysis doesn’t consider the cost of meeting the remaining five percent of demand through other means.

Overall, the analysis suggests a grid built primarily around renewables and energy storage could approach the cost of conventional technologies in the medium term. But barring any surprise technological developments, there’s still likely to be a significant gap in cost-effectiveness that could slow adoption.

That gap could be dwarfed by the price of unchecked climate change, though. With that taken into consideration, renewables combined with energy storage could provide a viable route to a sustainable grid.

 

By Edd Gent

This article originally appeared on Singularity Hub, a publication of Singularity University.

Total
0
Shares
Share
Tweet
Share
Share
Related Topics
  • Energy
  • Renewables
majulah

Previous Article
  • Technology

Quantum – A Double-Edged Sword For Cryptography

  • August 28, 2019
View Post
Next Article
  • Lah!

Monetary Authority Of Singapore Invites Applications for New Digital Bank Licences

  • August 29, 2019
View Post
You May Also Like
View Post
  • Cities
  • Technology

Meralco PowerGen’s PacificLight starts up 100 MW fast-response plant in Singapore

  • dotlah.com
  • June 20, 2025
View Post
  • Technology

Apple services deliver powerful features and intelligent updates to users this autumn

  • Dean Marc
  • June 12, 2025
View Post
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Machine Learning
  • Technology

Apple supercharges its tools and technologies for developers to foster creativity, innovation, and design

  • Dean Marc
  • June 11, 2025
View Post
  • Technology
  • Working Life

It’s time to stop debating whether AI is genuinely intelligent and focus on making it work for society

  • dotlah.com
  • June 8, 2025
oracle-ibm
View Post
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Technology

IBM and Oracle Expand Partnership to Advance Agentic AI and Hybrid Cloud

  • Dean Marc
  • May 6, 2025
View Post
  • Software
  • Technology

Canonical Releases Ubuntu 25.04 Plucky Puffin

  • Dean Marc
  • April 17, 2025
View Post
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Technology

Tokyo Electron and IBM Renew Collaboration for Advanced Semiconductor Technology

  • Dean Marc
  • April 2, 2025
View Post
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Technology

IBM contributes key open-source projects to Linux Foundation to advance AI community participation

  • dotlah.com
  • March 22, 2025


Trending
  • 1
    • Lah!
    Singapore And Australia Sign Digital Economy Agreement
    • August 8, 2020
  • 2
    • Cities
    • Society
    Coronavirus: Three Ways The Crisis May Permanently Change Our Lives
    • March 24, 2020
  • 3
    • Lah!
    • Technology
    Refreshed Singpass Reflects Improved Services And Drives Digital Innovations With Private Sector
    • March 6, 2021
  • CES 2025: Shaping the Future of Play 4
    • Gears
    • Technology
    CES 2025: Shaping the Future of Play
    • January 6, 2025
  • 5
    • Lah!
    NEA Launches Youth For Environmental Sustainability (YES) Programme
    • July 9, 2021
  • 6
    • Science
    • Technology
    How Urban Farming Tech Is Shaping The Future Of Food
    • September 3, 2020
  • 7
    • Environment
    • People
    Do Face Masks Really Prevent You From Catching Coronavirus?
    • March 13, 2020
  • dont-panic-pexels-anna-tarazevich-5939142 8
    • Features
    • People
    How To Help People If They’re Having Panic Attacks
    • April 9, 2022
  • 9
    • Lah!
    CapitaLand Staff Volunteers To Put In 6,000 Hours Towards Community Distribution Of Free Hand Sanitiser At 16 Malls In Singapore in support of Temasek Foundation’s Stay Prepared initiative
    • March 19, 2020
  • 10
    • Lah!
    • Technology
    More Than 500 SMEs Access New Overseas Markets With Grow Digital
    • June 25, 2020
  • 11
    • Cities
    • Lah!
    ST Engineering And UPS Introduce Skills Progression Programme To Train Aircraft Maintenance Technicians
    • October 16, 2021
  • 12
    • Technology
    New Meta for Education Offering is Now Generally Available
    • February 26, 2025
Trending
  • Camping 1
    The Summer Adventures : Camping Essentials
    • June 28, 2025
  • 2
    Meralco PowerGen’s PacificLight starts up 100 MW fast-response plant in Singapore
    • June 20, 2025
  • 3
    A Father’s Day Gift for Every Pop and Papa
    • June 14, 2025
  • 4
    Apple services deliver powerful features and intelligent updates to users this autumn
    • June 12, 2025
  • 5
    Apple supercharges its tools and technologies for developers to foster creativity, innovation, and design
    • June 11, 2025
  • 6
    It’s time to stop debating whether AI is genuinely intelligent and focus on making it work for society
    • June 8, 2025
  • 7
    PBBM asks Singapore to invest more in PH renewable energy projects
    • June 6, 2025
  • 8
    Singapore PM Wong arrives in Malacañang
    • June 4, 2025
  • 9
    Renewable energy, carbon credits are priority areas of cooperation for Singapore, Philippines: Lawrence Wong
    • June 4, 2025
  • 10
    Singapore businesses eye more investments in PH, says PM Wong
    • June 4, 2025
Social Links
dotlah! dotlah!
  • Cities
  • Technology
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Society
  • Science
  • About
Connecting Dots Across Asia's Tech and Urban Landscape

Input your search keywords and press Enter.