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Energy
Building
Affordable And Clean Energy
Industry, Innovation And Infrastructure
Sustainable Cities And Communities
Global energy demand has risen sharply over the past decade. The reasons for this include economic growth, population growth and the industrialisation of developing countries. Such energy demand must be met in the most stable and sustainable way possible, using renewable energies (Proton OnSite, 2016).
Variable electricity generation is a common phenomenon when dealing with renewable resources e.g. wind and sun. Thus, there can be a mismatch between the energy generated and the consumption patterns, leading to the fact that the energy is not necessarily produced at the time it is needed. Furthermore, due to the decentralised and widespread energy generation by renewable sources, the energy is not necessarily produced in places with demand.
Energy Storage Systems decouple energy production and consumption, and therefore, can help balance the system by storing energy available at the moment, which is not immediately needed, for future use (Distributed Control Methods and Cyber Security Issues in Microgrids, 2020).
Problems to be solved
Indirect by increased renewable energy integration:
| Fossil-fuel energy production | Carbon emissions | Detrimental air quality | Fossil-fuel dependency |
Directly through storage solutions:
| Voltage and frequency regulation | Grid instability | Geographical imbalances | Peak shaving | Efficiency of renewables | Utilisation rate of renewable production |
The composition of the electricity price can influence the economic performance of an energy storage system.
Legal regulations have a huge influence and can promote or inhibit storage systems in countries, regions, and cities.
Since electricity storage is mainly related to renewable energies, proximity to a renewable energy plant ensures a holistic approach to maximise emission savings within the drawn boundaries. For example, the electricity generated by a wind turbine or photovoltaic system can be stored in a storage system.
The economic performance of many energy generation and storage technologies depends heavily on the regulatory framework, especially concerning taxes and levies. Climate policy and CO2 price implications have the potential to push low carbon emission technologies. Then, the allowance price is added to the variable costs of each fossil-based technologies. For example, several European countries have a carbon tax. Portugal, Sweden, Spain and Poland are just a few examples (taxfoundation, 2020).
There have been several EU initiatives on batteries, such as Batteries Europe, SET Plan action, BRIDGE projects on batteries or the BATSTORM project (European Commission, 2020).
Most countries in the EU lack a specific support mechanism for energy storage systems, although some have implemented specific measures. In Germany, for example, there is a subsidy program for distributing battery storage systems. It aims to ensure that solar PV systems have a greater benefit to the overall system by smoothing their export. While some energy storage solutions are commercially viable without subsidies, larger infrastructure-heavy projects, such as larger-scale pumped storage plants, currently struggle to attract investment due to the high revenue risk (cms, 2018).
Stakeholder Map of an energy storage system (BABLE, 2021)
There are many projections for the future energy storage market. Some of these differ significantly, but one statement can be found in all projections: the energy storage market will grow. A study by Deloitte (2018) identifies various drivers for this growth:
In 2019, the global demand for energy storage systems amounted to 194.32 GW (Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2020). According to Bloomberg NEF, the energy storage market will cumulatively grow to 943 GW or 2,857 GWh by 2040. From 2018 to 2040, $620 billion will be invested in energy storage. By 2040, energy storage is expected to grow to account for 7% of total global installed electricity capacity. Initially, much electricity storage will be installed behind the meter, but by the mid-2030s, the majority of storage is expected to be in the utility-scale sector. The development of the market in the individual countries can be seen in the following figure (BloomberggNEF, 2018).
Figure: Projected global cumulative storage deployment by country 2018-2030 (Deloitte, 2018)
The costs for storage capacities are crucial for an energy system based on significant shares of renewable energy. The figure below presents an overview with specific prices per kWh for various electricity storage technologies in recent years. This incorporates battery systems, power to X technologies (electrolysis in brown colour), and pumps storage plants (pumped hydro in yellow colour) as the currently most utilised solution. The dependency between price and cumulative installed capacity is shown on the horizontal axes. Thus, a correlation between the installed capacity and cost reductions can be observed.
Figure: Experience curves for the costs and cumulative installed capacities of different electrical storage technologies (Schmidt, Hawkes, Gambhir, & Staffell, 2017)
In addition to the historic reduction of specific costs of electrical storage capacities, further cost reductions are expected. Studies project that Levelised Cost of Storages (LCoS) will reduce at least by one-third to one-half by 2030 and 2050. Moreover, it is expected that lithium ion will likely become more cost efficient for nearly all stationary battery applications from 2030 onwards (Schmidt, Melchior, Hawkes, & Staffell, 2019). The effect of cost reductions is not solely caused by economy of scale but also by the maturity-level of the technologies. A projection about the development of LCoS is given in the following figure.
Figure: Projected future costs of electrical storage technologies (Schmidt, Hawkes, Gambhir, & Staffell, 2017)
Operating model of an energy storage system (BABLE, 2021)
EU level
France (Norton Rose Fullbright, 2019)
Netherlands (Norton Rose Fullbright, 2019)
Energy
Mobility
Solution for re-purposing Electric Vehicle (EV) batteries. EV taxis of the private company OU Takso in Tartu will be partially recharged based on renewable energy that is produced on-site with PV panels and stored in used EV batteries improving the yield of the batteries.
Energy
Building
A plan to reduce electric consumption in tertiary buildings in Barcelona, through the installation and usage of photovoltaic solar panels.
Energy
ICT
Energy storage system with Li-Ion batteries which provides bi-directional flexibility. It is aimed for dynamic cycling.
Energy
Thermal energy is stored in the ground (boreholes), where excess thermal energy is returned to and stored in the ground. An electric battery in Lippulaiva is used to optimize electricity usage and participating in electricity reserve markets.
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