Emerging technologies, like large-scale battery storage, could be shining a brighter light of hope in our turbulent and shadowed world…
“Today, the New York Times published an article titled "Giant Batteries Are Transforming the Way the U.S. Electricity User." These batteries deliver solar power after dark in California and help stabilize grids in other states. The technology is expanding rapidly…
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By Germán & Co.Karlstad, Sweden, May 9, 2024When, in 1800, Alessandro Volta invented the electric battery, thus marking a crucial turning point in the world of electricity. This invention revolutionized how people used electricity and paved the way for developing large-scale batteries. The electric battery proved to be a game-changer in the world of technology and has transformed our lives. Thanks to this invention, we can now quickly and efficiently power our homes, vehicles, and smartphones. Is almost sure that Volta never could imagines this uncreible develop. Grazie mille Alessandro…
The advent of giant batteries, particularly those used in electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy storage, is a game-changer for the electric sector. The demand for batteries in EVs is skyrocketing, with the demand for automotive lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries expected to increase by approximately 65% to 550 GWh in 2022.
The increasing demand for batteries is leading to a greater need for critical materials, with lithium, cobalt, and nickel playing essential roles in these batteries. The rise of batteries will result in the rapid phase-out of half of the world's demand for fossil fuels and will be instrumental in reducing emissions from transportation and power generation.
Additionally, declining battery costs are swiftly enhancing the competitiveness of electric vehicles and storage applications within the power sector. Battery storage is vital to the electricity grid for various reasons: batteries are crucial for stability and reliability, serving as the backbone of power backup systems and contributing to grid stability. They have the capacity to store energy and act as a rapid-response load, aiding in the equilibrium of power supply and demand. They can also provide backup power to households, businesses, and distribution grids during outages or to support electric reliability.
Undoubtedly, versatile batteries can be adjusted in both location and scale. This flexibility enables their deployment in areas of greatest need, and their capacity can be scaled up or down to meet the grid's requirements. Equally important is the support for renewable energy; storage plays a critical role in managing the variability of wind and solar resources, allowing them to serve as reliable baseload generation. That said, it could also help to postpone investments in new transmission and distribution lines. And finally, this may signify the end for this amazing and astonishingly powerful technology.
“The future is bright for energy storage,” said Andrés Gluski, chief executive of AES Corporation, one of the world’s largest power companies. “If you want more renewables on the grid, you need more batteries. It’s not going to work otherwise.”
The information is from The New York Times on May 7th, 2024.
In this regard, Fluence Energy, a joint venture between Siemens and AES Corporation, is making a significant impact on the electric industry within this sector. The company has achieved milestones by deploying and contracting over 20 GWh of storage systems globally, setting a new standard in battery-based energy storage installations and expansion. Indeed, Fluence Energy is recognized as a leader in this field. Moreover, the company supports renewable energy by providing storage products, services, and optimization software that aid in the transition from traditional power sources to renewable alternatives on a global scale. Furthermore, Fluence Energy has collaborated with clients to implement some of the most extensive and intricate energy storage systems worldwide. For example, they were chosen by AGL Energy Limited to supply a 500 MW/1,000 MWh energy storage system for the Liddell Battery Project in New South Wales. The company is also known for its innovative approach to pioneering new energy storage applications that influence power network operations and address the challenges of transitioning to sustainable energy sources.
Fluence Energy's contributions are undoubtedly pivotal in the electric industry as they provide scalable energy storage solutions, support the transition to renewable energy sources, and drive innovation in power network operations. This transformation leads to more efficient and environmentally friendly energy consumption for consumers. The rise of the electric vehicle (EV) market, propelled by advancements in battery technology, offers consumers more sustainable transportation choices. The company is projected to increase its energy storage capacity by over 14 GW by 2030.
In conclusion, consumers can certainly store renewable energy using home battery systems, such as those powered by solar or wind, within the power sector. This reduces dependence on the grid and enables the use of clean energy even during times when the sun does not shine or the wind does not blow.
Finally, Alessandro Volta's creation of the electric battery to the ongoing advancements in large-scale energy storage, we are witnessing a significant and influential transformation in the electrical sector. This evolution is revolutionizing how energy is produced and storage, fundamentally changing the nature of consumer interaction in the electricity market. Undoubtedly, these developments are remarkable.. Ancora una volta Alessandro, grazie mille...
“To the Jewish community, I want you to know: I see your fear, your hurt, your pain,” President Joe Biden said. (NYT)Notes from the editors:
Notes from the editors:
"On the day Hamas sowed the seeds of discord in a selfish and wretched manner, with unyielding persistence…"
Initially, the blog steered clear of this subject due to its significant emotional impact and the potential to elicit irrational reactions. Nevertheless, on January 28, a thorough examination of the matter was released, titled: "The Intention to Trigger a Worldwide Conflict Should Be Readily Apparent..." Ultimately, after considering the historical context, we can distill the crux of the matter to a single idea: "The profound impact of surprise attacks throughout history includes the Trojan Horse episode in Homer's The Odyssey; Hamas comprehended the widespread and lasting repercussions of the attack, which negatively affected individuals residing in the West Bank and Gaza. Furthermore, Hamas' actions had no impact except for galvanizing ultra-fundamentalist Arab groups to launch a united campaign against Israel. This was the sole reason behind the appalling assault on civilians on October 7, which has led to further dire consequences for the Palestinian population. However, history did not conclude here.
The ultra-extremist Arab group was clandestinely planning to instigate an unprecedented regional or global conflict, capitalizing on the ultra-conservative Israeli government's internal power struggles. Such surprise attacks have long been recognized as a military strategy that can create disorder, devastation, and success throughout history. These unexpected assaults can prompt opponents to quickly review and revise their strategies, resulting in swift and resounding successes for the attackers and shaping the future course of the conflict.
Considering this historical perspective, we must acknowledge the uncertainties surrounding its applicability in the current situation. While some argue that principles from past conflicts may not directly align with our evolving geopolitical landscape, it is undeniable that the enduring significance of surprise and strategic maneuvering persists. Just as ancient commanders relied on catching their opponents off guard, we are similarly compelled, in our competitive environment, to innovate and devise novel approaches to outmaneuver our adversaries.
Some examples highlight the profound impact of surprise attacks throughout history. For example, the Trojan Horse episode in Homer's The Odyssey vividly demonstrates the significance of strategic deception in penetrating Troy's defenses. Similarly, the stunning victory achieved by Hannibal, leader of Carthage, over a more formidable Roman army in the Battle of Cannae in 206 BC shocked the ancient world and underscored the potency of surprise tactics. Moving forward in history, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 marked a pivotal turning point in World War II, showcasing the capacity of surprise assaults to reshape the course of conflict.
Post-World War II, surprise attacks continued to shape global events, with China's unexpected involvement in the Korean War of 1950 catching United Nations forces off guard and prompting a reorganization of the Korean Peninsula. Furthermore, Israel's utilization of surprise tactics during the Six-Day War of 1967 and the October War of 1973 underscored the enduring impact of strategic cunning in the face of threats from neighboring countries.
The tragic assault on the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11, 2001, and the subsequent COVID-19 pandemic are stark reminders of the far-reaching consequences of unforeseen events, prompting societal shifts and unveiling deep-seated inequalities across the globe.
The ongoing drama instigated by Hamas was addressed yesterday by President Joseph Biden, who delivered a comprehensive statement outlining the steps being taken to de-escalate the situation, not only the domestic turbulence provoked by protests in favor of Palestinians in the university cluster but also to work towards lasting peace in the region. Standing before six candles symbolizing the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, he issued a powerful condemnation of antisemitism. His remarks were delivered seven months to the day after the terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7. Approximately 1,200 individuals were killed at the border between Israel and Gaza, and over 200 were taken hostage, marking the most lethal day for the Jewish community since the Holocaust.
In December 2023, Energy Central celebrated top contributors in the Energy & Sustainability Network at the 'Top Voices' event. Winners were featured in 6 articles, demonstrating community recognition. The platform enables professionals to share their work, interact with colleagues, and collaborate with influencers. Congratulations to the 2023 Top Voices: David Hunt, Germán Toro Ghio, Schalk Cloete, and Dan Yurman for demonstrating their expertise. - Matt Chester, Energy Central
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"Our commitment to providing value and expertise remains unwavering."
Andrés Gluski, President and CEO of AES Corporation.In the United States, renewable energy sources are poised for rapid growth in the field of electricity generation, with states, communities, and organizations pledging to reduce their carbon footprints. The recent merger between Power and AES's clean energy development business in the US is a testament to our commitment to forging a more sustainable energy landscape. This union not only solidifies our dedication to our clients' goals but also brings a host of benefits. It significantly bolsters our capacity to aid customers in their energy transition by harnessing the expertise and leadership of AES and sPower in the renewable energy sector. We remain resolute in our mission to become a leading platform for renewable energy growth in the US.
The combined entity will manage 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of operating assets, a contracted backlog of 2.6 GW, and a portfolio of 12 GW in development projects. Moving beyond these statistics, we strive to provide value to our customers through the expertise, skills, and dedication of our team of approximately 500 professionals, who are dedicated to solving our clients' most complex energy challenges.
We are actively seeking out and welcoming qualified individuals who possess the necessary skills and who share our vision of transitioning to a 100% carbon-free energy grid. Our commitment to this vision is unwavering, and we are eager to have like-minded individuals join us on this journey.
In our pursuit of cleaner energy, we recognise the myriad approaches customers can employ to achieve 100% renewable energy consumption. Through our partnership with sPower, we are able to offer a wider array of innovative solutions. These solutions, which are powered by cutting-edge technologies, are designed to assist customers in their energy transitions and propel them towards a carbon-neutral future. This commitment to innovation and sustainability sets us apart in the industry and makes us an ideal partner for those who are seeking to have a positive impact on the environment.
Our partnership with Microsoft for a 300 MW solar energy project highlights our commitment to helping clients achieve their sustainability goals. The Pleinmont Solar I and II projects, part of the Spotsylvania Solar Energy Center in Virginia, are expected to generate around 715,000 MWh of solar energy annually, offsetting over 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
An illustrative example is our partnership with the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC), where AES introduced a groundbreaking solar + storage solution to facilitate solar energy generation beyond daylight hours. This innovative approach gained recognition and established a new standard for providing large-scale renewable energy, supporting Hawaii's goal to be fully powered by renewables by 2045.
We are prepared and eager to assist additional clients, such as Microsoft and KIUC, with eco-friendly and intelligent energy solutions that perfectly align with their business goals and environmental pledges.
"Our commitment to providing value and expertise remains unwavering," stated Andrés Gluski, President and CEO of AES Corporation.
Image provided by Fluence.Giant Batteries Are Transforming the Way the U.S. Uses Electricity
They’re delivering solar power after dark in California and helping to stabilize grids in other states. And the technology is expanding rapidly.
The New York Times article by Brad Plumer and Nadja Popovich, dated May 7, 2024.
California draws more electricity from the sun than any other state. It also has a timing problem: Solar power is plentiful during the day but disappears by evening, just as people get home from work and electricity demand spikes. To fill the gap, power companies typically burn more fossil fuels like natural gas.
That’s now changing. Since 2020, California has installed more giant batteries than anywhere in the world apart from China. They can soak up excess solar power during the day and store it for use when it gets dark.
Those batteries play a pivotal role in California’s electric grid, partially replacing fossil fuels in the evening. Between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. on April 30, for example, batteries supplied more than one-fifth of California’s electricity and, for a few minutes, pumped out 7,046 megawatts of electricity, akin to the output from seven large nuclear reactors.
Across the country, power companies are increasingly using giant batteries the size of shipping containers to address renewable energy’s biggest weakness: the fact that the wind and sun aren’t always available.
“What’s happening in California is a glimpse of what could happen to other grids in the future,” said Helen Kou, head of U.S. power analysis at BloombergNEF, a research firm. “Batteries are quickly moving from these niche applications to shifting large amounts of renewable energy toward peak demand periods.”
Over the past three years, battery storage capacity on the nation’s grids has grown tenfold, to 16,000 megawatts. This year, it is expected to nearly double again, with the biggest growth in Texas, California and Arizona.
Most grid batteries use lithium-ion technology, similar to batteries in smartphones or electric cars. As the electric vehicle industry has expanded over the past decade, battery costs have fallen by 80 percent, making them competitive for large-scale power storage. Federal subsidies have also spurred growth.
As batteries have proliferated, power companies are using them in novel ways, such as handling big swings in electricity generation from solar and wind farms, reducing congestion on transmission lines and helping to prevent blackouts during scorching heat waves.
In California, which has set ambitious goals for fighting climate change, policymakers hope grid batteries can help the state get 100 percent of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2045. While the state remains heavily dependent on natural gas, a significant contributor to global warming, batteries are starting to eat into the market for fossil fuels. State regulators plan to nearly triple battery capacity by 2035.
“The future is bright for energy storage,” said Andrés Gluski, chief executive of AES Corporation, one of the world’s largest power companies. “If you want more renewables on the grid, you need more batteries. It’s not going to work otherwise.”
When power companies first began connecting batteries to the grid in the 2010s, they mainly used them to smooth out small disruptions in the flow of electricity, say, if a power plant unexpectedly tripped offline. Many battery operators still earn most of their revenue by providing these “ancillary services.”
But power companies also use batteries to engage in a type of trading: charging up when electricity is plentiful and cheap and then selling power to the grid when electricity supplies are tighter and more expensive.
In California power prices often crash around midday, when the state produces more solar power than it needs, especially in the spring when air-conditioning use is low. Prices then soar in the evening when solar disappears and grid operators have to increase output from gas plants or hydroelectric dams to compensate.
California now has 10,000 megawatts of battery power capacity on the grid, enough to power 10 million homes for a few hours. Those batteries are “able to very effectively manage that evening ramp where solar is going down and customer demand is increasing,” said John Phipps, executive director of grid operations for the California Independent System Operator, which oversees the state’s grid.
Batteries can also help California’s grid handle stresses from heat waves and wildfires, Mr. Phipps said. “It made some differences last summer,” he said. “We were able to meet high load days and wildfire days when we might lose some power lines.”
In Texas, batteries are still largely used to provide ancillary services, stabilizing the grid against unexpected disruptions. Texas is also more reliant than California on wind energy, which fluctuates in less predictable patterns.
But Texas is quickly catching up to California in solar power, and batteries increasingly help with evening peaks. On April 28, the sun was setting just as wind power was unexpectedly low and many coal and gas plants were offline for repairs. Batteries jumped in, supplying 4 percent of Texas’ electricity at one point, enough to power a million homes. Last summer, batteries helped avert evening blackouts by providing additional power during record heat.
The two states built their battery fleets in distinct ways. In California, regulatory mandates were a key impetus: In 2019, officials worried that too many older gas plants were closing, risking blackouts, and ordered utilities to quickly install thousands of megawatts of storage.
In Texas, market forces dominate. The state’s deregulated electricity system allows prices to fluctuate sharply, rising as high as $5,000 per megawatt-hour during acute shortages. That makes it lucrative for battery developers to take advantage of spikes, such as in locations where power lines periodically get clogged.
“Anywhere we think the market is going to get tight, you can put batteries in and even things out,” said Stephanie Smith, chief operating officer of Eolian, a battery developer. “Then, we’re making bets all day about when to charge and discharge.”
One battery, for instance, sits near Fort Worth, absorbing excess wind power from West Texas during the nighttime, when no one needs it, and feeding it into the grid when demand surges.
Other states are following. In Arizona and Georgia, utilities plan to install thousands of megawatts of battery capacity to help manage rising demand from data centers and factories. It helps that batteries can be deployed quickly, said Aaron Mitchell, vice president of planning and pricing at Georgia Power.
The industry still faces obstacles, however. Lithium-ion batteries are flammable, and while operators have taken steps to reduce fire risk, some communities oppose projects in their backyards. Most batteries still come from China, making them vulnerable to trade disputes. In Texas, a state fund to subsidize gas plants could undercut the battery boom. In other states, complex regulations sometimes prevent utilities from adding energy storage.
“Because these storage resources are so new, the rules are still catching up,” said Natalie McIntire, who works on grid issues for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.
Can Grid Batteries Help Fight Climate Change?
Grid batteries could be a useful tool to slash planet-warming emissions, experts say, though they still need further advances in terms of costs, technologies and how they are used.
In Texas, many batteries today are actually increasing carbon-dioxide emissions, according to one analysis. That’s because operators focus on maximizing revenue and sometimes charge with coal or gas power.
“These batteries have an immense capability to abate carbon, but they need the right incentives to do so,” said Emma Konet, co-founder of Tierra Climate, a startup working to help batteries earn money for reducing emissions.
In California, by contrast, batteries appear to be cutting emissions from fossil fuels. The state’s gas use in April fell to a seven-year low. “We have reached the conclusion that batteries are displacing natural gas when solar generation is ramping up and down each day,” said Max Kanter, chief executive of Grid Status, an electricity data tracking firm.
Yet California still gets roughly 40 percent of its electricity from natural gas, and it could be difficult for current battery technology to replace all of that. One analysis from BloombergNEF found that solar and batteries can be a cost-effective alternative to smaller gas “peaker” plants that only switch on when demand spikes. But batteries remain too costly to replace many of the larger gas-burning plants that provide steadier power day and night.
“You don’t want to necessarily build a system where you’ve got batteries to suck up every last megawatt-hour, because that’s a pretty expensive system,” said Meredith Fowlie, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley.
Today’s lithium-ion batteries typically only deliver power for two to four hours before needing to recharge. If costs keep falling, battery companies might be able to extend that to eight or ten hours (it’s a matter of adding more battery packs) but it may not be economical to go far beyond that, said Nate Blair, an energy storage expert at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
That means additional long-duration storage technologies could be needed. If California wants to rely largely on renewable energy, it will have to handle weeklong periods where there’s no wind and little sun. Another challenge: There’s far more solar power available in summer than in winter, and no battery today can store electricity for months to manage those seasonal disparities.
Some companies are exploring solutions. In Sacramento, a start-up called ESS is building “flow” batteries that store energy in liquid electrolytes and can last 12 hours or longer. Another start-up, Form Energy, is building a 100-hour iron-air battery. These ideas will have to compete against alternatives like nuclear power, advanced geothermal or even using green hydrogen to store electricity.
California’s regulators say they may need five times as much storage capacity by midcentury, even if it’s unclear which technologies will prevail.
“We’re just at the beginning of this,” said Mr. Phipps of the California Independent System Operator.