Grid energy storage

Grid energy storage is the use of various energy storage techniques to complement electric power generation plants on the transmission grid. Demand for electricity from the world's various grids varies over the course of the day and from season to season. For the most part, variation in electric demand is met by varying the amount of electrical energy supplied from primary sources, usually hydroelectric dams and gas-fired turbines. Increasingly, however, operators are storing marginally cheap energy produced at night, then releasing it to the grid during the day when it is more expensive. nergy storage only ma!es sense when the marginal cost of electricity varies more than the energy losses of storing and retrieving it. For instance, ".# gigawatt-hours might be stored at night in a pumped-storage reservoir, at a cost of ".$ cents%!ilowatt-hour. &he next day, " gigawatt-hour might be recovered 'and #(( megawatt-hours lost) and sold at *.( cents%!ilowatt-hour, for a profit of +##,(((. If this profit can be reali,ed on most days, and if the storage facility cost less than perhaps +"((-, the operator ma!es a profit. &he marginal cost of electricity varies because of the varying economics of different !inds of generators. .t one extreme, water from a dam can be let down the spillway about as cheaply as it can be run through a turbine, so the marginal cost of generation is nearly ,ero. /oal-fired and nuclear plants are also low marginal cost generators, as they have high capital and maintenance costs but low fuel costs. .t the other extreme, most pea!ing generators burn natural gas, which is expensive. 0perators prefer cheaper electricity, so they run the low-marginal-cost generators most of the time and only run the more expensive ones when necessary. 1npredictable and intermittent renewable supplies, li!e wind and solar power, tend to increase the net variation in electric load. 2ecause they are not controllable or reliable, power from these supplies is generally sold to grid operators for less than power available on demand. .s renewable supplies become increasingly popular, this difference in price opens an increasingly large economic opportunity for grid energy storage.

Contents

" 3eactive electrical demand # 4umped water storage 5 /ompressed air storage * &hermal energy storage $ 2attery storage 6 Flywheel storage 7 8uperconducting magnetic energy storage 9 :ydrogen fuel cells ; xternal lin!s

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Reactive electrical demand

&he easiest way to deal with varying electrical loads is to decrease the variation. For decades, utilities have sold off-pea! power to large consumers at lower rates, to encourage these users to shift their loads to off-pea! hours 'in the same way that mobile phone companies do with individual customers). 1sually, these time-dependent prices are negotiated ahead of time. In an attempt to save more money, some utilities are experimenting with selling electricity to large users at minute-by-minute spot prices, which allow those users to detect demand pea!s as they happen, and shift demand to save both the user and the utility money.

Pumped water storage

In many places pumped storage is used to even out the daily generating load by pumping water to a high storage reservoir during off-pea! hours and wee!ends, using the excess base-load capacity from coal or nuclear sources. During pea! hours this water can be used for hydroelectric generation, often as a high value rapid-response reserve to cover transient pea!s in demand. &here is over ;( <= of pumped storage in operation, which is about 5> of global generation capacity. 4umped storage recovers about 9(> of the energy consumed. &he chief problem with pumped storage is that it usually requires two nearby reservoirs at considerably different heights, for which there are few suitable locations, and often requires considerable capital expenditure.

Compressed air storage

.nother grid energy storage method is to use off-pea! electricity to compress air, which is usually stored in an old mine or some other !ind of geological feature. =hen electricity demand is high, the compressed air is burned with natural gas to run a turbine and generate electricity.

Thermal energy storage

0ff-pea! electricity can be used to ma!e ice from water, and the ice can be stored until the next day, when it is used to cool either the air in a large building 'thereby shifting that demand off-pea!) or the inta!e air of a combustion gas turbine generator 'thereby increasing the on-pea! generation capacity).

Battery storage
-any ?off-the-grid? domestic systems rely on battery storage, but means of storing large amounts of electricity as such in giant batteries or by other means have not yet been put to general use. 2atteries are generally expensive, have maintenance problems, and have limited lifespans. 0ne possible technology for large-scale storage are large-scale flow batteries. 8odium-sulfur batteries could also be inexpensive to implement on a large scale #

and have been used for grid storage in @apan. Aanadium redox batteries are also begining to be use for energy storage including the averaging of generation from wind turbines If battery electric vehicles were in wide use with modern high cycle batteries B"C B#C such mobile energy sin!s could be utili,ed for their energy storage capabilities. Aehicle to <rid technology could be employed turning each vehicle with its #( to $( !=h battery pac! into a load balancing device or emergency power source. &his represents # to $ days per vehicle of average household requirements of "( !=h per day, assuming annual consumption of 56$( !=h. &his quantity of energy is equivalent to between *( miles up to 5(( miles of range in such vehicles consuming (.$ to (."6 !=h per mile. &hese figures can be achieved even in home made electric vehicle conversions.

Flywheel storage
-echanical inertia is the basis of this storage method. . heavy rotating disc is accelerated by an electric motor which acts as a generator on reversal, slowing down the disc and producing electricity. lectricity is stored as the !inetic energy of the disc. Friction must be !ept to a minimum to prolong the storage time. &his is often achieved by placing the flywheel in a vacuum and using magnetic bearings, tending to ma!e the method expensive. Darger flywheel speeds allow greater storage capacity but require strong materials such as steel or composite materials to resist the centrifugal forces 'or rather, to provide centripetal forces). &he use of carbon nanotubes as a flywheel material is being researched. &he ranges of power and energy storage technically and economically achievable however tend to ma!e flywheels unsuitable for general power system applicationE they are probably best suited to load-levelling applications on railway power systems.

Superconducting magnetic energy storage

8uperconducting magnetic energy storage '8- 8) systems store energy in the magnetic field created by the flow of direct current in a superconducting coil which has been cryogenically cooled to a temperature below its superconducting critical temperature. . typical 8- 8 system includes three partsF superconducting coil, power conditioning system and cryogenically cooled refrigerator. 0nce the superconducting coil is charged, the current will not decay and the magnetic energy can be stored indefinitely. &he stored energy can be released bac! to the networ! by discharging the coil. &he power conditioning system uses an inverter%rectifier to transform alternating current './) power to direct current or convert D/ bac! to ./ power. &he inverter%rectifier accounts for about #-5> energy loss in each direction. 8- 8 loses the least amount of electricity in the energy storage process compared to other methods of storing energy. 8- 8 systems are highly efficientE the round-trip efficiency is greater than ;$>.

Due to the energy requirements of refrigeration, and the limits in the total energy able to be stored, 8- 8 is currently used for short duration energy storage. &herefore, 8- 8 is most commonly devoted to improving power quality. If 8- 8 were to be used for utilities it would be a diurnal storage device, charged from baseload power at night and meeting pea! loads during the day. &he high cost of superconductor is the primary limitation for commercial use of this energy storage method.

Hydrogen fuel cells

:ydrogen as a fuel has been touted lately as a solution in our energy dilemmas. :owever, the idea that hydrogen is a renewable energy source is a misunderstanding. :ydrogen is not an energy source, but a portable energy storage method, because it must first be manufactured by other energy sources in order to be used. :owever, as a storage medium, it may be a significant factor in using renewable energies. It is widely seen as a possible fuel for hydrogen cars, if the problem of energy return on energy invested can be overcome. It may be used in conventional internal combustion engines, or in fuel cells which convert chemical energy directly to electricity without flames, in the same way the human body burns fuel. -a!ing hydrogen requires either reforming natural gas with steam, or, for a possibly renewable and more ecologic source, the electrolysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen. &he former process has carbon dioxide as a by-product, which exacerbates 'or at least does not improve) greenhouse gas emissions relative to present technology. =ith electrolysis, the greenhouse burden depends on the source of the power, and both intermittent renewables and nuclear energy are considered here. =ith intermittent renewables such as solar and wind, the output may be fed directly into an electricity grid with a penalty due to the requirement to operate some extra conventional plant on part load to allow for the fluctuations in power output. .t penetrations below #( > of the grid demand this penalty is usually small and does not severely change the economics, but beyond about #(> of the total demand the penalty may ma!e the generated power uneconomic. If these sources are used for electricity to ma!e hydrogen, then they can be utili,ed fully whenever they are available, opportunistically. 2roadly spea!ing it does not matter when they cut in or out, the hydrogen is simply stored and used as required. Guclear advocates note that using nuclear power to manufacture hydrogen would help solve plant inefficiencies. :ere the plant would be run continuously at full capacity, with perhaps all the output being supplied to the grid in pea! periods and any not needed to meet civil demand being used to ma!e hydrogen at other times. &his would mean far better efficiency for the nuclear power plants. .bout $( !=h '".9 -@) is required to produce a !ilogram of hydrogen by electrolysis, so the cost of the electricity clearly is crucial. ' .t +(."(%!=h this means hydrogen costs +$ a !ilogram for the electricity, equivalent to +$ a 18 gallon for gasoline if you use in a Fuel /ell vehicle, plus electroly,er plant costs which will not be small.) *