Projects

1. Future trends

The research and development of new and renewable energy, as well as the search for advanced methods to improve energy utilization efficiency, have become the primary issue of global concern. There is both a demand for energy conservation and emission reduction, as well as a need for energy growth to support economic development, which requires the vigorous development of the energy storage industry.

The analysis report shows that the increasing energy consumption, especially the significant use of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, poses a serious threat to the environment and global climate, posing a serious threat to the goal of sustainable human development. According to predictions, based on existing technologies for extracting non renewable energy and the rate of continuous consumption of these fossil fuels day and night, the useful life of coal, natural gas, and oil is estimated to be 100-120 years, 30-50 years, and 18-30 years, respectively. Obviously, the biggest challenge and dilemma facing the 21st century may not be war and food, but energy.

On January 19, 2016, the World Energy Agency announced that due to new solar cell technology and other technological advancements driving down prices, the cost of battery energy storage will decrease by 70% over the next 15 years.

Energy storage itself is not an emerging technology, but from an industrial perspective, it has just emerged and is in its early stages.

2. The instability of renewable energy

Due to the influence of different times or climates, solar and wind energy do not always generate electricity when energy is most needed. Energy storage is an indispensable technology for accelerating the replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy. The peak electricity consumption usually occurs in summer afternoons and evenings, when solar power generation is decreasing but the temperature has not dropped. When people return home from work, they start using electricity to cool down, cook, and run other appliances.

3. Promoting the development of renewable energy

Energy storage system technology plays a crucial role in ensuring that homes and businesses can use green energy, even when the sun is not shining or the wind stops blowing.

For example, the installed capacity of offshore wind power in the UK is the largest in the world, capturing wind energy and deploying it purposefully can increase the value of clean energy and potentially reduce costs through scaling up. Every day, the UK National Grid and global power engineers must balance supply and demand. When the goal is to achieve zero carbon production, peak and valley management becomes more challenging. Traditionally, coal-fired power generation is used for regulation during peak and valley periods, but battery energy storage facilities can gradually replace some coal-fired peak generators. The UK government estimates that technologies such as energy storage systems, supporting the integration of more low-carbon electricity, thermal energy, and communication technologies, can save up to £ 40 billion ($48 billion) for the UK energy system by 2050, ultimately reducing people's energy costs.

From both operational and stable power supply perspectives, energy storage technology can further promote the development of renewable energy and drive the continuous development and shift of public utilities towards renewable energy.

4. Ensuring energy stability

The future energy system will be a diversified energy system composed mainly of new energy and various forms of energy. The volatility and intermittency of wind and photovoltaic power generation determine that flexibility will be an essential component of new energy systems. From a technical perspective, energy storage can precisely meet the flexibility requirements of new energy systems. Therefore, the technology path of achieving large-scale access to renewable energy through energy storage technology and promoting low-carbon energy transformation is highly anticipated by the industry.

4.1 Reduce the rate of wind and light abandonment

The installed capacity of wind and photovoltaic power stations has increased significantly in recent years. However, due to the randomness and anti peak shaving nature of wind and solar power generation, a large number of grid connections will have a strong impact on the existing power grid, making it more difficult to adjust the peak voltage and frequency of the main grid, resulting in serious "wind curtailment" and "solar curtailment" phenomena. At the same time, it increases the risk of safe and stable operation of the power grid. In the case of limited capacity of local peak shaving and frequency regulation units, the development of wind and solar power stations has encountered bottlenecks. Most regions with abundant renewable energy resources have relatively low electricity loads, and a large amount of new energy generation cannot be consumed locally. Without a fully built external transmission network, the amount of "wind" and "solar" electricity will be wasted in vain. Storing new energy generation that cannot be connected to the grid is equivalent to obtaining electricity at zero cost. As long as the grid price of electricity is greater than the share of unit energy storage cost and fixed investment, and the stored energy is consumed in a reasonable way, enterprises can profit by storing "wind" and "solar" energy.

5. The benefits of electric energy storage

Any power grid must match the generation and consumption, both of which will undergo significant changes over time. Any combination of energy storage and demand response has the following advantages:

5.1Fuel based power plants (i.e. coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear energy) can operate more efficiently and easily at a constant production level.

5.2Electricity generated from intermittent sources can be stored and used in the future, otherwise it must be transferred to other places for sale or shutdown.

5.3 The peak generation or transmission capacity can be reduced by adding the total potential of all storage to the latency load, thereby saving the cost of this capacity.

5.4 More Stable Pricing - The cost of storage or demand management is included in the pricing, so the electricity prices charged to customers vary less, or (if prices remain legally stable) the losses caused to utilities from expensive peak wholesale are smaller. Imported wholesale electricity must meet the electricity prices during peak demand.

Emergency preparedness - Even without transmission or power generation, important needs can be reliably met while delaying non essential needs.

5.5 Energy from solar, tidal, and wind energy naturally varies - the amount of electricity generated varies with random factors such as time, lunar phase, season, and weather throughout the day. Therefore, the lack of stored renewable energy poses special challenges for power companies. Although connecting many individual wind sources can reduce overall changes, it is reliable that solar energy cannot be used at night, and tidal energy moves with the moon, resulting in four tidal relaxes per day.

How much does this affect any given utility. During the peak summer electricity consumption period, it is usually possible to absorb more solar energy and match it with demand. During winter peak hours, wind is to a lesser extent related to heating demand and can be used to meet that demand. Based on these factors, intermittent energy sources connected to the grid (such as solar and wind turbines) that exceed 20% to 40% of total power generation often require investments in grid interconnection, grid energy storage, or demand side management.

In a power grid without energy storage, power generation relying on energy stored in fuels (coal, biomass, natural gas, nuclear energy) must be scaled up and down proportionally to adapt to the rise and fall of intermittent sources of electricity production. Hydroelectric and natural gas power plants can quickly expand or shrink in scale to keep up with the wind, while coal and nuclear power plants require a lot of time to respond to loads. Therefore, utilities with less natural gas or hydroelectric power generation rely more on demand management, grid interconnection, or expensive pumped storage.