Knowledge Hub: Energy Storage Solutions
Takeaways from recent roundtable discussion
As part of our Knowledge Hub initiative, Susten facilitated an engaging roundtable conversation on the future of energy storage, mainly thermal and hydrogen ✨🌍
Selected takeaways
· Volatility in electricity pricing and supply is increasing and will continue to do
so. For example, in the German system last year a significant % of kilowatt hours were sold at zero or negative prices. We heard that a participant could have operated in the system at a mean price of zero for up to 10% of total hours.
· The financial stability of the electricity grid/system is threatened. Customers are increasingly going off grid for their power supply. Often these are the best customers, because the most operationally and financially stable customers are the most likely to be able to arrange better, cheaper power supplies for themselves.
· Energy storage as a service. Both Brenmiller and GRZ discussed this. It is not only because it makes it easier for customers to afford the capex or because it is a popular business model nowadays among investors. Energy storage REALLY IS a service. It is a service to the system. And a service to customers. The primary obstacle is that customers are reluctant to lock themselves into long term contracts because their planning horizon is short and they have not adjusted to the recent volatility in energy prices.
· Local, distributed storage is critical. This is storage at the level of low voltage distribution lines. This is where problems are.
· Our expectations for future renewable generation capacity, extrapolated from current trends, are lovely and inspiring but these capacity installation forecasts are completely, entirely unrealistic because we don’t have enough of the commodities required. We are not mining nearly enough copper, or zinc, or lithium. These metals exist. But we don’t have nearly enough mining capacity and new mines take years or decades to come online. Recycling batteries will help but will not come close to solving the problem.
· L-ion batteries are fine for short term storage with limited use. For longer duration storage or many cycles, hydrogen and compressed air are much better. Thermal storage is somewhere between l-ion and the other technologies. One participant pointed out that heat and electricity storage are fundamentally different.
· Governments and policy makers couldn’t care less about storage. Ok, this is a massive exaggeration. But they do prioritise it below solar and wind capacity and other related issues which are, in fact, now less critical for the energy transition.
· Converting excess power into high-value chemicals is a great idea but probably not practical. One participant suggested that it could be practical with supportive governmental policy.
Many thanks to our participants: Claudio Ruch Co-founder GRZ Technologies, Nir Brenmiller from Brenmiller Energy ($BNRG), Ergün Güngör Postdoc Researcher Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), University of Cambridge, Ian Bamford Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), University of Cambridge, Dr Raphael Slade Senior Research Fellow Imperial College London and Head of Science for IPCC, Marcus Cooper Senior Advisor McKinsey & Company, Dr George Kavvouras Chief Sustainability Officer Globalsat Group, and Tony Kypreos Investor and Visiting Lecturer Cambridge Judge Business School