Diving Brief:

• To help commercialize emerging energy storage that can power the grid for at least 10 hours, the Department of Energy has launched a four-year, $505 million initiative. It aims to reduce barriers to on-grid energy storage and support small-scale behind-the-meter pilot projects as well as large-scale demonstrations.
• The DOE initiative, announced May 12, will draw on the know-how of its agency, research labs and industry to make “solar power available when the sun isn’t shining and keep the ‘wind energy available when there is no breeze’ at an affordable price. cost, he says.
• For long-duration energy storage to become prime time, not only must the cost of emerging technologies drop drastically, such as solar and wind, but many other renewables must be added to the grid. US, according to an energy storage analyst. In addition, the market must provide adequate compensation regardless of how often storage supplies the network.

Overview of the dive:

DOE’s New LLong-lasting energy storage for everyone, everywhere Initiative aims to increase local control, “build community resilience, minimize power grid disruptions and help meet President Biden’s goal of 100% clean electricity by 2035“, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said when announcing the initiative late last week.

Today, lithium-ion batteries dominate the energy storage front, but their duration to date has been limited to two to four hours. To keep energy flowing through grids in the United States, especially during extreme weather conditions, much longer storage is needed, analysts and grid operators say.

And the emerging long-term storage is inextricably linked to solar and wind resources.

Today, however, renewable energy in the United States, including hydroelectricity, represents only about 20% of the average supply and much more is needed, said Dan Shreve, global head of energy storage. energy at Wood Mackenzie. So, the timing of the new DOE initiative is good because it allows young startups to “put their technology in the field and demonstrate its ability to ensure technology is ready when needed,” Shreve said.

Long-duration storage has the unique opportunity “to balance higher levels of renewable energy penetration without having to overburden on the generation side,” and perhaps also to mitigate some “extraordinarily problematic additional transmission builds.” “, according to Shreve.

There are several emerging technologies that should be able to provide long-term storage, but commercialization depends on affordability.

“The challenge of 10 hours or more of storage comes down to the cost of that number of MWh,” said Yang Shao-Horn, a professor in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. “Lithium-ion is so hard to beat in the market because it can be manufactured quickly and at scale.”

She also said there is huge storage potential thanks to the expected continued increase in lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles, which are growing ten times faster than grid storage. “What we will have in electric vehicles may be comparable or represent a substantial fraction of the grid’s needs.”

The DOE is working to reduce multi-hour storage costs to $0.05/kWh by 2030 with its half-billion dollar announcement announced last week and its “Long-term storage shooting » announced last July.

It’s too early to say whether its target of a 90% cost cut is realistic, but the sharp drop in wind and solar prices is cause for optimism, according to Shreve.

“There are plenty of precedents showing that advances in technology can scale quite quickly on total deployment costs,” Shreve said. “If you asked industry experts 10 to 15 years ago the price of wind and solar, I think people would have a hard time thinking we’ve come this far.”

In addition to electric vehicles with two-way capability, other long-lasting candidates include sodium-ion batteries, Shao Horn said. They can be traded for lithium-ion production, and sodium is widely available unlike lithium, the price of which has risen sevenfold since the start of the war in Ukraine, she said. Sodium batteries currently lack the energy density of lithium, but prototypes are helping it catch up.

Other candidates include circulating vanadium batteries and fuel cells powered by renewable gas and green hydrogen.

Successful commercialization also requires that the various storage technologies brought online be able to generate profits.

Shreve stressed that the funding should not only support field technology testing, but also allow developers to better understand the critical business side, “helping to formulate the market mechanisms that will allow long-term storage to survive. and thrive on the network”.

The DOE has requested feedback on its optimal program implementation and eligibility requirements for electrochemical, mechanical, thermal, or a combination of storage technologies by June 16.