OPINION
BATTERY STORAGE CAN OPTIMISE THE ENERGY MIX, BUT IS ALSO LIMITED We are all becoming increasingly familiar with the narrative that, energy storage is the solution for balancing a distributed and renewable grid, therefore reducing the need for vastly oversized infrastructure. Batteries are one mechanism for doing this, as they store power, when wind and solar generation outstrips demand, and use this to balance the grid when demand outweighs supply. They also have the unique ability to discharge power within the millisecond, and effectively balance the second-bysecond variations in output. A fuel-based generator cannot turn on quick enough to respond to these types of changes. But, to solve the week-by-week or season-by-season variations with batteries is to follow the same route as a 100% wind and solar powered grid. Again, to scale battery storage to store the weeks and weeks of power needed to balance the grid in those situations would result in huge infrastructure requirements. Therefore, in the scenario above, batteries enable you to significantly reduce the oversizing of wind and solar infrastructure, whilst ensuring the minimum power requirement. But in those longer timeframes and locations farther from energy sources, the question becomes: is a system that only has wind, solar and battery
storage the most optimised and economical one we can create?
HYDROGEN AND BIOFUELS OFFER ANOTHER FORM OF RENEWABLE ENERGY STORAGE TO FURTHER OPTIMISED OUR ENERGY SYSTEM Wind, solar and battery storage are not the most optimised solution, not when we have a route to netzero, demand-responsive power with fuels such as hydrogen and biofuels. These renewable fuels can be a more energy dense and more costeffective energy storage medium for balancing supply and demand not just in those longer timeframes, but across the spectrum of intermittency. The challenge in using renewable fuels today is twofold. Firstly, the timelines to the abundant availability of renewable fuels that are economical to produce and environmentally sustainable is uncertain. This creates risk around investing in fuel infrastructure today that could become redundant tomorrow. Equally, any technology currently available, for burning these renewable fuels, uses a flame during the combustion process, producing the pollutant emissions that are harmful to human health. We need, therefore, technologies and solutions that offer fuel-flexibility in order to de-risk the transition to renewable fuels, as well as ones that do not compromise our clean air ambitions. Hydrogen fuel cells go some way to answering these challenges, but
breakthroughs in flameless combustion and low-cost, high-temperature ceramics offer an alternative solution. We can, then, continue to use the localised dispatchable power generation that we have always used but do so with renewable fuels. As with batteries, renewable fuel-based power offers a further opportunity to optimise our energy system and reduce the total amount of infrastructure needed.
A HYBRID SYSTEM OF WIND, SOLAR, BATTERIES AND RENEWABLE FUEL-BASED POWER IS THE SOLUTION FOR A RESILIENT, OPTIMISED AND STABLE ENERGY SYSTEM As the world strives to decarbonise and mitigate our climate impact, one of our key goals is to ensure sustainable, secure and affordable energy. Renewable fuels, and innovations in the technologies that operate them, offer a road map to reinventing fuel-based power generation to help achieve this future. An energy system that uses wind, solar, battery storage and renewable fuel-based power is not only more optimised and stable, but one that is decarbonised and affordable too. Let us not, therefore, discard fuel-based power as a tool of the past, but one that can evolve to help us achieve a resilient and secure net-zero future. www.inpowergen.com
ENERGY MANAGER MAGAZINE • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020
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