China, struggling to make use of a boom in energy storage, calls for even more…
Manuel Cabral Aguado Bejarano
"La Reyerta" ("The Brawl")
1850
Oil on canvas
60 x 74.5 cm
CTB.1998.4
© Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection on free loan to the Carmen Thyssen Museum in Málaga.Happy Sabbath to all! May this day bring joy, peace, and blessings to everyone…
The current geopolitical landscape suggests that President Vladimir Putin occupies a dominant position. Marine Le Pen's significant victory in France has been linked to substantial financial support from the Kremlin. The Labor Party's overwhelming victory in England, coupled with Germany's weakened state, has changed the political dynamics in Europe. Additionally, with the US election process underway, forecasts indicate a potential re-election of former President Donald Trump in November. Should these predictions come to pass, they could herald the end of the war in Ukraine. President Putin demonstrated his political savvy by announcing an upcoming visit by India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Moscow. The visit is expected to address concerns about India's alignment with Western interests and its distancing from Moscow, which could cede influence to China in Latin America and Africa. While the visit's dates have not yet been confirmed, both countries have acknowledged it, and Indian media speculate that Modi's visit might align with a NATO summit in Washington. The summit takes place amid heightened scrutiny of President Joe Biden's cognitive abilities, fueled by a New Yorker article that discusses the potential invocation of the Twenty-fifth Amendment. In an interview with Tucker Carlson on February 8, President Putin addressed a critical question, further shaping the international dialogue. A few hours ago, Spain triumphed over Germany in the Euro Cup with a last-minute goal during extra time, concluding the match with a final score of 2-1. Qué viva España…. The recent victory of Spain evokes the 1850 painting by Manuel Cabral Aguado Bejarano, titled 'La Reyerta' ("The Brawl") depicting a chaotic brawl in an Andalusian inn, filled with various characters in violent confrontation. At the heart of a spacious, yet plainly adorned room, a man with his left arm in a sling defends himself against an adversary, weapon in hand, ready to strike. Around them, the scene intensifies: to the left, a man hoists a guitar high, poised to hit another figure on the floor, while a woman weeps beside a gravely wounded person. Meanwhile, a gentleman hastens down a staircase, apparently escaping the conflict with a partner. Above, another individual seems prepared to step into the fray with a gun. Indeed, it is the mad and cruel world we inhabit... and it warns us that we are very close to another Yalta II Agreement... Moreover, the shift from El Niño to La Niña, along with Hurricane Beryl, has led to extensive damage and a rise in poverty, impacting the electricity sector. Further details can be found in the New York Times article titled "How Future Hurricanes Could Stress Power Grids of U.S. Cities," featured in this edition. Wishing myself a good night and a good morning to everyone else.
Artwork by Germán & Co“The cost of batteries going down made energy storage more affordable in China. Peak-valley pricing allows selling stored energy for more money when demand is high, boosting the use of storage tech like batteries and pumped hydro storage.
China is leading the energy transition with the goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2060. The country's energy sector has traditionally relied heavily on fossil fuels, especially coal, which accounts for over 90% of its greenhouse gas emissions. To attain carbon neutrality, China needs to hasten the shift towards low-carbon energy and promote the adoption of clean energy technologies such as solar power, heat pumps, and electric vehicles, especially in rural areas.
Renewable energy sources like wind and solar photovoltaic are anticipated to increase sevenfold by 2060, with renewables expected to constitute nearly 80% of China's power generation mix. This transition will be supported by innovative technologies like hydrogen and carbon capture, demonstrating China's progressive stance on energy transformation.
The decreasing cost of batteries has made energy storage more economically viable in China. The implementation of peak-valley pricing allows providers to sell stored energy during high-demand periods when prices are higher, thus encouraging the use of storage technologies, including battery and pumped hydro storage. This is particularly evident in coastal provinces such as Guangdong.
While pumped hydro storage is a mature technology in China and has a larger capacity than battery storage, it is limited by geographical factors and longer development times.
China's dedication to the energy transition offers economic opportunities, geopolitical benefits, and addresses urgent environmental issues. Realizing carbon neutrality will necessitate extensive reforms, advanced technologies, and significant financial investments, presenting considerable economic opportunities and growth potential.
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Andrés Gluski, President and CEO of AES Corporation.“We do not inherit the earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children.”
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“Renewable energy is growing rapidly in the US. The recent merger between Power and AES's clean energy business boosts our ability to assist clients in their energy transition. Our combined entity manages 2.5 GW of assets, with 2.6 GW backlog and 12 GW in projects. Join our team dedicated to solving complex energy challenges and transitioning to a carbon-free grid.
In our quest for cleaner energy, we offer various innovative solutions through our sPower partnership, aiding customers in transitioning to 100% renewable energy consumption. The projects like Pleinmont Solar I and II in Virginia underline our commitment to sustainability and impact on the environment. Our collaboration with Microsoft on a 300 MW solar energy initiative further supports clients in reaching their green objectives.
AES partnered with KIUC for a solar + storage solution, setting a new standard in renewable energy, supporting Hawaii's 2045 goal. Ready to help Microsoft and more with eco-friendly energy solutions, as mentioned by Andrés Gluski, AES's President and CEO.
Electrical pylons and power lines stand in the Yanqing district of Beijing, China.. Workart by Germán & Co. Reuters by Colleen Howe, Beijing, July 5, 2024.Rows of what look like thin, white shipping containers are lined up on a barren dirt field in China's Shandong province.
Filled with batteries, they form a 795 megawatt (MW) plant that can hold up to 1 million kilowatt-hours of electricity - enough to power 150,000 households for a day, making it China's largest such storage facility when it was connected to the grid last Saturday.
Built by Lijin County Jinhui New Energy Co, the project is part of an explosion in development of energy storage in China, which has called for even more investment in the sector to boost renewable electricity and ease grid bottlenecks.
While the state-led drive has provided a welcome spark for home-grown battery giants such as CATL (300750.SZ), opens new tab and BYD, some industry insiders and experts say pricing reforms and technology improvements are needed for a storage sector whose rapid growth has been plagued by low utilisation and losses for operators.
"Most of the players in this sector are trying to figure out how to make money," said Rystad Energy senior analyst Simeng Deng.
Investment in grid-connected batteries in China surged 364% last year to 75 billion yuan ($11 billion), according to Carbon Brief, creating by far the world's largest storage fleet at 35.3 GW as of March.
In May, China set a new target of at least 40GW of battery storage installed by the end of 2025, up 33% from the previous goal under a wider plan to reduce carbon emissions.
REUTERS GRAPHIC
Reuters Graphics
Storage is critical to help balance supply and demand when wind and solar farms produce more renewable electricity than the grid's distribution system can handle, or when a lack of sun or wind means they are generating too little power.
To meet Beijing's targets, local governments have required renewable energy plants to build storage, driving rapid capacity growth.
However, highly regulated power markets have struggled to incentivise usage, particularly at solar and wind facilities, leading China's cabinet to call for research into improving price mechanisms.
Energy storage at renewables plants operated just 2.18 hours a day last year, while independent facilities operated only 2.61 hours per day, according to the China Electricity Council. By comparison, storage at industrial and commercial plants operated 14.25 hours per day.
Policy mandates requiring renewables plants to install storage have failed because they add to project costs and often sit idle, said Cosimo Ries, an analyst at Trivium China.
"Because power prices are not flexible enough during different hours, these projects just can't really make money," Ries said.
BIG BUILD:
The stakes are high for China, which leads the world in adoption of energy transition technology, and for its battery giants, which are seeing faster growth in batteries for storage than for cars as electric vehicle sales growth slows.
While government mandates are a key driver of China's storage boom, big power users such as industrial parks and EV charging stations are also driving adoption. China, where 60% of the world's electric vehicles are sold, has worried about the effects of EVs on its power grid, and storage can help smooth demand spikes.
Falling battery prices are improving the economics of storage in China, with costs for batteries used in standard energy storage down by about a fifth between the end of 2023 and mid-June, according to consultancy Shanghai Metals Market.
Also, expanding adoption of "peak-valley pricing", which discourages electricity use during peak demand times by raising prices, gives storage providers more chance to profit by selling stored power when they can charge more.
That has led to intraday price differentials of up to 0.9 yuan per kwh in coastal provinces like Guangdong, where the peak price of 1.1868 yuan/kwh is more than four times the low, enough to incentivise use of both battery and pumped hydro storage, said Alex Whitworth, head of Asia Pacific power research at Wood Mackenzie.
Pumped hydro is an established technology with more than 60% greater capacity than battery storage in China, but with geographical limitations and long lead times.
Investor returns on solar-plus-storage projects are also improving as solar module prices fall, making renewables-plus-storage "financially feasible in most parts of China" with internal rates of return meeting the minimum investment hurdle rate of at least 8%, wrote Pierre Lau, a Citi analyst.
Further market reform is needed to incentivise battery storage, industry players say, with storage operators calling for wider use of capacity payments similar to those meant to keep struggling coal plants online, with costs shouldered by customers.
BETTER BATTERIES:
Battery technology is also improving…
The vast new Shandong plant incorporates both lithium ion and vanadium redox flow batteries, according to a report by local state media. Vanadium is a newer technology that promises longer storage times and improved safety.
While the economics of lithium ion batteries are expected to improve, experts say most current technology is suitable for shorter storage durations of four hours or less, and some say it is best used in smaller-scale applications. Fire risk remains a concern, particularly with lower-quality batteries, experts say.
Emerging technologies such as thermal energy storage, redox flow batteries, and sodium ion batteries have shown promise for longer-duration storage but have higher up-front costs, with technology and supply chains that are less mature.
China is hedging its bets by increasing its pipeline of pumped hydro projects - which can take five to seven years to build - and encouraging demonstration projects in emerging technologies.
Reporting by Colleen Howe, additional reporting by Zhang Yan and Beijing newsroom; Editing by Lincoln Feast.
Darkened streets in New Orleans after Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana in 2021 and knocked out power supplies. Credit...Johnny Milano for The New York TimesHow Future Hurricanes Could Stress Power Grids of U.S. cities…
A new analysis shows increasing frequency and intensity of hurricanes could cause more devastating interruptions to the power grid.
The New York Times, authored by Austyn Gaffney, July 5, 2024.The risk of hurricane-induced power outages could become 50 percent higher in some areas of the United States, including Puerto Rico, because of climate change in the coming decades, according to a new analysis.
Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Electric Power Research Institute mapped how future hurricanes could affect power supplies, allowing residents to see how vulnerable their electricity is.
The research comes just after Hurricane Beryl broke records as the earliest Category 4 and 5 storm to form in the Atlantic Ocean. The storm flattened islands in the Caribbean, killed at least eight people and left vulnerable island communities in shambles. On Friday, it made landfall on the Yucatán Peninsula and its projected path suggests it could hit northern Mexico and the Gulf Coast of Texas this weekend.
“These hurricanes can cause really devastating power outages,” said Julian Rice, a data scientist at the national laboratory who helped develop the map. Those outages can have subsequent effects, he said, like reducing access to health care and cutting off power used to heat and cool homes.
The researchers used computer s to model almost one million hurricanes under simulated climate scenarios. The models projected factors like humidity, wind and sea surface temperatures under various potential global warming situations between 2066 and 2100.
The Pacific Northwest team then partnered with the power research institute, a nonprofit group focused on electricity research, to pair these mock hurricanes with a power outage model that trained on outage data from 23 hurricanes that affected the United States over the last decade.
The projections suggest that increasingly stronger and wetter storms, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, will make landfall more frequently and push further inland, with tangible effects on the grid. In these scenarios, increased rainfall clogs soil and weighs down tree canopies. Trees can easily uproot or become unstable, falling on power lines or causing landslides that knock out electric infrastructure.
The Mid-Atlantic and Northeast coastal areas are predicted to see the zone of potential climate-driven storms and hurricanes shift upward, exposing them more often to the risk of outages. The average person in the metropolitan areas of Boston, Houston and New Orleans could see expected outage events increase more than 70 percent per decade, the analysis found. In Tampa, it’s even higher, and in Miami, residents could see a 119 percent increase.
Hurricanes get a lot of attention from utility companies along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, said Andrea Staid, research leader in energy systems and climate analysis at the Electric Power Research Institute, who helped author the study.
But the analysis could help energy companies plan future improvements, she said. “It motivates them even more because it shows what can happen if we don’t adapt,” Dr. Staid said, “if we don’t take climate considerations into account when planning our energy system.”
Over the last decade, the number of weather-related power outages has almost doubled, according to Climate Central. Most major power outages between 2000 and 2023 were caused by extreme weather, and 14 percent of those were caused by tropical cyclones and hurricanes.
Some of the counties with the highest risk for more frequent power outages — like Broward County, Fla., Wilkinson County, Miss., and Hyde County, N.C. — also have the highest levels of social vulnerability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those counties have demographic and social-economic factors, like poverty and lack of transportation access, that can adversely affect communities that face natural disasters.
Joan Casey, an associate professor of public health at the University of Washington, said power outages amplify risk for people with underlying health conditions. Lack of power can quickly take people that are vulnerable, such as those who use electricity-dependent respirators, from relative safety to a dangerous situation.
The map has limitations. Researchers used the worst-case future climate scenario projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and considered a static infrastructure grid without factoring in potential changes that could harden the power system, like burying lines underground, strengthening poles, or installing community-scale solar.
But Karthik Balaguru, a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researcher and co-creator of the map, pointed out that while it’s a worst-case model, some research suggests that we’re trekking closer to this model than any other by midcentury.
And hurricanes aren’t the only risk. Last week, a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists found that by 2050, a different climate risk, sea level rise, could expose more than 1,600 critical buildings and services to flooding twice a year, including more than 150 electrical substations.
“It’s a wake-up call that we need to be addressing our power system and making it much more reliable and much more resilient to climate related stresses,” said Kristina Dahl, a principal climate scientist for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a co-author of the report.
Dr. Casey said we could now take important steps to invest in our grid, particularly with solar and battery storage that can provide community-scale power. But that won’t be enough.
“We have to stop burning fossil fuels,” said Dr. Casey. “That’s pretty much the answer.”
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