While the business of electricity storage has grown rapidly in recent years, the story behind the story is that the underlying technology for power storage is evolving rapidly and seems likely to continue to produce improvements in both cost and performance.
From “Motivations and options for deploying hybrid generator-plus-battery projects within the bulk power system,” The Electricity Journal
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the application of storage to enhance the operation of power generation facilities. The developers and investors behind power generation projects have natural incentives to find storage applications that are well suited to enhancing their project’s value considering the specific characteristics of their generation technology and their local power markets. In the effort to maximize returns on a given power generation project, the power generation industry is in a unique position to assess the tradeoffs between flexibility, battery life, cost, and operating mode when developing storage capacity dedicated to maximizing the value of a generation project. These developers can design a hybrid generation + storage project to efficiently respond to the requirements of a long-term supply contract, or to the anticipated value streams available from ancillary products. In so doing they can be expected to drive the development of hybrid storage installations that are fine-tuned for certain situations and fit for purpose.
For example, in Los Angeles California, local authorities recently signed a 20-year contract with 8minute Solar Energy for a hybrid solar+storage project with an aggregate pricing of 3.962¢/kWh. In this case, there would be little need for seasonal or long-term storage. Most of the storage capacity will be needed for a few hours, to shape the power project’s daily output to match the daily peaks in demand of the city. In this case, as in many others, the power storage technology can be refined to meet a more narrowly defined set of requirements, which will likely lead to improvements in the technology applicable to any project owner operating in similar conditions.
On the next page and elsewhere this issue, readers can review reports on the astounding variety of recent developments that collectively paint a picture of a remarkable pace of innovation and development in generation plus storage – the kind of change that stands to impact the energy market for years to come.
See also the following related stories in this issue:
Solar + storage advancing rapidly
Drumheller gets 13.5 MW solar / 8 MW storage
Hawaii seeks 460 MW of solar with storage
PG&E seeks OK for 423 MW of storage
SoCalEd signs for 770MW of battery storage
PV, onshore wind now cheapest for most of world: BNEF
Nevada to be site of record-breaking 690 MW solar farm