Energy storage is all set to really come of age in 2020 – and yes, we know you have heard that many times before but utility scale storage projects are mushrooming around the world and solar-plus-storage appears set to flex its grid balancing muscles in the U.S. and Australia in the next 12 months.
In the U.S. particularly, solar-plus-storage projects may even shoulder aside gas peaking plants as the method of choice for backing up security of electricity supply. As Steve Fludder, CEO of the NEC Energy Solutions business of Japanese conglomerate NEC told pv magazine: “Lithium-ion batteries can pull megawatt hours onto the grid in milliseconds, matching supply to demand in real time.” And it will continue to be lithium-ion based storage which dominates, despite concerns associated with the environmental and social damage associated with sourcing lithium.
Raw material sourcing
If industry body the U.S. Energy Storage Association can persuade Congress to legislate an Investment Tax Credit dedicated to storage systems this year, the technology really could go off like a rocket in the new year.
Plenty in store for batteries
In Australia, demand for large scale energy storage shows little sign of abating despite the ambivalence of the government to the climate crisis. The ageing, under-invested electricity transmission infrastructure which represents such a hurdle to the deployment of new solar generation capacity appears to be offering an opportunity to storage, with some out-of-the-way farmsteads already being supported by solar-plus-storage rather than costly new electricity poles.
Storage could also be set to surprise a few analysts by gaining traction in emerging solar markets, although significant hurdles remain in cost-sensitive markets such as India, despite the hope being placed in a 1 GW Solar Energy Corporation of India tender which will require at least half that generation capacity to be backed up by storage. As Atin Jain, of market intelligence firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance pointed out: “Expensive economics of storage, [the] technical complexities of the tender, land acquisition challenges and [an] inability of IPPs [independent power producers] to secure competitive debt and equity can impact this tender. But we believe that this tender is a first step towards achieving dispatchable renewables in India.”
Price falls in the battery sector, as in all other new technologies, are critical for widespread adoption and soaring demand for lithium driven by the anticipated growing demand for electric vehicles – as well as grid-scale storage – may actually apply the brakes to the rapid savings which have been achieved this year.
Bifacial prospects
Opinions are divided over the rate at which bifacial PV panels will continue to displace traditional, single-sided models this year, thanks largely to uncertainty over whether the exemption of bifacial products from Section 201 import tariffs in the U.S. will be lifted or not.
An investigation is currently under way and, as PV InfoLink analyst Corinne Lin has told pv magazine, the analyst revised down its 2020 outlook for bifacial deployment volumes as a result, to 12 GW of new capacity worldwide. The analyst pointed out demand remains healthy for bifacial in emerging markets including Egypt, Mexico, Brazil, El Salvador, Chile, the UAE, Oman, Pakistan, Israel, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Russia, as well as Spain and the U.K.
That is something BloombergNEF’s Jenny Chase can agree on, as she predicted bifacial modules will contribute up to 40% of utility scale solar in the world’s hottest markets in 2020 for a total volume of 20-29 GW en route to almost total domination by the mid-2020s.
Manufacturers in for a rough ride
Chase also predicted a tough year for some of the world’s solar manufacturers – excluding polysilicon producers – and suggested even some of the top ten brands could be forced out of the PV market in 2020 by wafer-thin margins and the continuing squeeze on subsidies in China.
In terms of hard numbers, the world could see as much as 135 GW of new solar capacity rolled out over the next 12 months with India anticipating at least 10 GW thanks to 7 GW of projects tendered this year and another 5 GW of procurement rounds already in the pipeline. Solar and renewable energy bodies Enerplan and SER predict France could see 1.5 GW of new solar in 2020, to hit 11.4 GW of cumulative capacity. Perennial favorite Germany could see at least another 4 GW – the figure likely to have been added this year – provided the government finally makes good on its promise to remove the 52 GW cap which would cancel subsidies for systems with a capacity of up to 750 kW. If the cap stays in place, however, the first half of the new year could see a rush to install projects before a collapse in new additions.
One market widely expected to see new solar installation figures retreat is Australia, where prime minister Scott Morrison appears content to fiddle with coal while Sydney burns. The lack of any solar policy now the 2020 Renewable Energy Target has been passed could see new installs fall from the 4 GW expected to have been added this year to around 2.5 GW in 2020. Most of that new capacity is set to be made up of 2019 projects delayed by excessive hurdles thrown up in front of renewable developers by the Australian Energy Market Operator but at least the rooftop solar market remains in rude good health.
Policy questions
Alongside solar superpowers China and the U.S., keep an eye on a resurgent Spain as well as South Korea and Taiwan in the 12 months ahead, although Bloomberg NEF’s Chase predicts the elusive solar revolution in Africa will continue to be dogged by project delays, with auctions set to secure solar power for around $40/MWh or so.
The lack of policy support for solar Down Under hints at the critical role legislation continues to play in the battle against climate catastrophe and all eyes will be on Europe in the short-term to see whether new commission president Ursula von der Leyen can steer through her Green Deal for Europe without it being significantly watered down by naysayers in Hungary and Czechia as well as, infuriatingly, departing member Britain.
The big election date will come in November, of course, and could have a signal effect on the course of the U.S. energy transition.
Sustainable solutions
The next 12 months is likely to see the EU attempt to persuade China to ramp up decarbonization of an energy system which still relies far too heavily on coal although politicians may have to offer up tangible incentives to Chinese entities on their own shores to do so and that could cause conflict with domestic manufacturers keen to take a lead in sustainable production. Meanwhile, the petro-states in the Middle East are likely to offer ready-made markets for big volumes of cheap, coal-fired Chinese panels as they attempt to burnish a global image which continues to be tarnished by several issues, not least a perceived unwillingness to surrender the grip on power which oil and gas have given them.
Throw in the rising application of artificial intelligence to the way grids operate and energy is traded, wider deployment of green hydrogen projects and the much more common development of co-located solar, wind and storage facilities and there appears to be plenty to get excited about in the solar world next year – and we haven’t even mentioned perovskites!
Happy new year folks, it appears there will be plenty more to look forward to in the 12 months ahead.
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All Natural resources used must be accountable for the eco damage that is caused by their use.
Mining ,land use are the biggest contributors to ecosystem damage.
We must always put Nature first.
Scrap all existing taxes and replace with a single natural resource Tax collected at source and based on the Eco damage caused by their use and consumption plus UBI and a wealth tax
“By this time next year we may be able to wave goodbye to that old chestnut about renewables endangering security of supply.”
Did you ever stop to think that energy journalists such as yourself are the ones perpetuating this myth? Because you are. You guys have some sort of weird fixation with batteries such that you can’t imagine anything else being used to balance RE. Guess what? We have lots of hydro and gas and controllable load that’s a hell of a lot cheaper and far more effective than batteries so far as balancing RE goes.
In the last 10 years the US has deployed 1 GW of batteries – maybe 50 MW of that is being paired with RE. Wake up and smell reality Max.
Thanks for the interest Joe. The question of balancing renewables encompasses more than monetary cost. You may be aware the development of new hydroelectric power facilities is hugely damaging to the environment and the production and distribution of natural gas causes significant leakage of methane, the most potent of the greenhouse gases.
On the question of perpetuating myths, we at pv magazine simply report the news, which is why you will also find articles about the importance of gas in the energy transition with a simple search of our site. I’m not clear though about what you are referring to as a myth here, do you mean it’s a myth that renewables threaten security of supply or that that argument will disappear?
We already have 175 GW of hydroelectric capacity in North America. The reservoirs behind these dams hold over 100 TWh of potential energy. The balancing potential of these facilities is vast and we’ve yet to see it fully utilized.
We have well over 500 GW of natural gas capacity in North America. These resources are 50 time cleaner than coal and can potentially be transitioned over to renewable sources of gas. Most importantly, these resources or something very similar is the best form of seasonal storage to complement a high penetration grid.
If the pipelines leak lets fix that. Doesn’t seem like a moon landing mission to me. Also… There are far worse greenhouse gases. Not to mention far worse regular gases. Natural gas doesn’t have any of the associated SO2, particulate or mercury associated with oil and coal.
The myth I’m talking about is the use of dedicated grid batteries for grid balancing. First off, it makes a heck of a lot more sense to use EVs and heating for short-term balancing. Second off, batteries aren’t suitable for seasonal storage. Don’t trust me… Look into NREL’s reports on the subject. Look into MIT, E3 or Agora. If you put the numbers to the test you’ll clearly see that batteries aren’t a good resource for seasonal balancing. But you guys keep promoting them… It’s hardly the news. It’s all sponsored by the battery industry and research houses that want to sell reports and fill convention seats.
Hello again Joe, I have no knowledge about whether pv magazine receives sponsorship from battery and energy storage companies or not. Presumably we do but I’m a journalist and have nothing to do with that side of things. Whilst I am sure battery manufacturers, raw materials companies, industry bodies etc are happy to encourage positive coverage of their products and their prospects, to suggest pv magazine is somehow implicit is completely wide of the mark.
On your related point about the natural gas capacity of North America, pointing out gas is cleaner than coal or oil in emissions terms may be accurate but does not conceal the fact it is still a fossil fuel contributing significant amounts to global warming. Were it possible to remove methane leakage entirely that would be helpful and you are absolutely right to suggest it doesn’t seem like something that should be an insurmountable problem. Which tends to make me believe it should have been fixed already by the industry. The fact it hasn’t speaks volumes.
I will leave it to far more knowledgeable members of our community to put the case for, and against, utility scale battery storage.
Here’s another way to put it Max… If you go back 10 years there was a widely held belief that the grid wouldn’t be able to handle any more than 5 or 10% RE. If you look you can find studies from NREL proposing 20% wind penetrations. Over time the studies looked at larger areas and considered ever larger pathways toward a high RE grid. As things currently stand NREL has established that a 50 to 75% RE grid is not only doable but quite economical relative to the current system. My basic understanding based on direct communication with researchers at NREL is that this latest study (the Interconnection Seam Study) is being underfunded and prevented from publication. The current US leadership doesn’t want a federally funded research institution saying we can economically achieve high RE penetrations.
This study also points out the myth of storage albeit indirectly. You see, negligible grid storage is required to achieve these high RE penetrations.
It seems to me as though the RE crew got ahead of themselves when it came to batteries. Batteries have been a compelling story because the costs have fallen similar to other technologies like solar, wind, TVs and such. But the thing you leave out is that the costs are falling because of portable electronics and EVs. You’ve taken these costs declines as an argument for the inevitability of dedicated grid connected batteries without analyzing how that would work.
We’ve seen 5 years of flat grid battery deployments (all heavily subsidized btw) and yet you say this year will be the year. Maybe we will see a bumper crop of storage but that doesn’t mean this technology is particularly useful in balancing RE. The simple truth is… It’s not. Controllable load is order of magnitudes larger than dedicated grid storage. We should focus on using controllable loads for hourly, daily and even multi-day balancing in some cases. Beyond this we need to admit that fueled generation is the logical solution to periods of low RE availability.
So the point is… Stop promoting junk. It’s not actual news. It’s promotion. We all want to see wind and solar come to power the world. The pathway you’re promoting is counter-productive.
Don’t take my word for it. Reach out to the Seams study people at NREL. The numerical analysis of this problem has produced the same general result for everyone who has examined it. We can get to the first 75% RE without any additional batteries and batteries don’t help with the last 25%. So it’s a myth that grid batteries are necessary for a high RE grid. It’s a myth that this is going to be the year that batteries break through. They’ll never break through because they aren’t a good way to balance the grid.
I refer the Right Hon’ble Joe to the answer I gave some moments ago, apart from to add the following clarification. pv magazine is not “promoting” anything, it is covering the news. Your criticism of battery storage as a grid balancing tool is a useful contribution to the debate, but boldly deciding on your own the case for utility scale storage is “not actual news” and thus dismissing all dissenting voices, is an opinion. It is that which is not news.
Finally, on your assertion that “we all want to see wind and solar come to power the world” – if only that were the case.
There’s a big difference between independent journalism and sponsored content. This piece looked like sponsored content to me. As if the projections are coming out of the slide deck of a battery startup.
Hi Joe, I can assure you there is no element of sponsored content in this article. I wrote it after consulting analysts and my colleagues at pv magazine to seek their opinions on what the big developments this year would be.
Hi JoeJoe, on the matter of Texas grid models contact me on gmail. I am peter090654.
The constraints in the referred 16th Sep article are related to system voltage and system “weakness”, which itself is an indirect reference to the ability of generators to supply short-circuit currents in the event of a fault e.g. lightning strike.
Voltage stability and short-circuit currents are integral requirements of grid stability and were put in place decades ago because of the economic and physical damage (as well as, in some cases, loss of life) caused by grid collapse and the consequent loss of power supply. They are hardly “…excessive hurdles thrown up in front of renewable developers by the Australian Energy Market Operator…”.
PV solar and batteries, and in fact anything else that exports via standard inverters, supply negligible to zero short-circuit current in the event of a fault. The projects under discussion were put in (presumably) on the basis that grid stability – and the costs that go with it – would be shouldered by conventional rotating generators. Well, that worked for as long as supplies which were connected by inverters were in the minority. But now that solar and batteries are becoming more dominant they can no longer pass on to someone else the costs of conforming with the laws of physics. This could have been – in fact, was – predicted many years ago: as the proportion of inverter-based supply increases then either those supplies have to be curtailed because of their lack of support to stability or else an alternative solution e.g. synchronous condensers, has to be paid for.
Projects like Gannawarra ignored the latter, obviously hoping that the costs of maintaining grid stability would fall on someone else; and so they are landed with the former.
As inverter-based supplies increase, the situation will get worse until the cost of assuring grid stability (something which was once the free by-product of rotating generators) is explicitly recognised and assigned – and either socialised across all consumers or else borne by individual projects e.g. for every MW of PV / battery someone wishes to connect he has to install (or fund) a proportionate facility for ensuring grid stability.
GE has recently performed a “black start” on one of their 150MW turbines with only 7.5MWh of energy storage. The so called Australian “big battery” referred to by the (coal-ition) as a “six minute solution” has proven even at 10% energy storage available, one can run the Neoen wind farm with the energy storage and perform dispatchable generation operation to keep the grid up, as when Loy Yang coal plant failed “unexpectedly offline” one hot summer day. The ability of energy storage attached to a generation resource of any type is a stacked service provider that amortizes much faster than old rotating inefficient generation resources online now. As for the observation from a pundit you give:
“But now that solar and batteries are becoming more dominant they can no longer pass on to someone else the costs of conforming with the laws of physics. This could have been – in fact, was – predicted many years ago: as the proportion of inverter-based supply increases then either those supplies have to be curtailed because of their lack of support to stability or else an alternative solution e.g. synchronous condensers, has to be paid for.”
“As inverter-based supplies increase, the situation will get worse until the cost of assuring grid stability (something which was once the free by-product of rotating generators) is explicitly recognised and assigned – and either socialised across all consumers or else borne by individual projects e.g. for every MW of PV / battery someone wishes to connect he has to install (or fund) a proportionate facility for ensuring grid stability.”
YASKAWA is an old inverter manufacturer and can readily come up with an “Engineered” inverter product using the latest/greatest SiC switching technology in an 18 pulse configuration to take care of glitches and demands on the grid in milliseconds to seconds instead of the old sorry mechanical generation of from several minutes to perhaps an hour to react to the grid. IF AEMO doesn’t want to DO it, the individual residents will install their own micro-grids and take care of their own. There have been many mining operations and some industrial plants as well as larger farming operations installing their own micro-grids for a more reliable power supply to run their businesses. IF one is going to “fund grid stability”, they might as well “fund” their own power supply and use the grid as backup.
Very educative
“In the U.S. particularly, solar-plus-storage projects may even shoulder aside gas peaking plants as the method of choice for backing up security of electricity supply. As Steve Fludder, CEO of the NEC Energy Solutions business of Japanese conglomerate NEC told pv magazine: “Lithium-ion batteries can pull megawatt hours onto the grid in milliseconds, matching supply to demand in real time.” And it will continue to be lithium-ion based storage which dominates, despite concerns associated with the environmental and social damage associated with sourcing lithium.”
It has been recently reported that NEC and Ambri have signed an agreement to use molten battery technology designed by Ambri in future utility scale energy storage units. Even one of the progenitors of the lithium ion battery, Professor Goodenough and a team of researchers in Texas think they have found a group of elements to create the solid state battery. Right now there are many R&D projects testing ‘other’ elements for batteries like, K, Fe, I, Na, Ti, Zn, P using nano-technology to create new anodes and cathodes for battery technology. Lithium and Cobalt are not necessary and this allows the World to use these elements that are much more common around the World to be used for energy storage. It’s a very large process and yet, creating the chemistry, setting up a proof of concept then formulating a treatise for things like extraction, formulation, and actual manufacturing makes or breaks the formulation as a “valid” commercial product.
Recently company 24M claims they have a “semi-solid” battery technology that is “chemistry agnostic”. As new formulations come along, the 24M product line can try different clay like anolytes and catholytes, which is kind of like a redox flow battery where one can tailor the anolyte entrained electrolyte and a different entrained electrolyte for the catholyte that enhances electron flow through the battery solid separator. It’s apparently good enough that Kyocera has signed a development and manufacturing agreement for a new residential energy storage system to be sold in Japan for right now. The future will require a battery formulation that is temperature stable, no liquid electrolytes with a relatively high energy density that doesn’t need a complex BMS, EMS, pack cooling or fire suppression system onboard. this would drop costs precipitously for a residential ESS and allow “overengineering” of a residential battery system to allow an amount of energy storage that would address the typical home’s daily energy requirements without the grid at large.