Faced with worsening climate disasters and a power grid increasingly powered by intermittent renewables, the United States is rapidly installing huge batteries that are already beginning to help prevent blackouts.
From just a few years ago there was barely anything, the United States is now adding utility-scale batteries at a dizzying pace, having installed more than 20 gigawatts of battery capacity on the power grid, of which 5 GW was produced in the US alone. first seven months of this year. year, according to the federal Energy Information Administration (EIA).
This means that in just four years, battery storage equivalent to the output of 20 nuclear reactors has been added to US power grids, according to the EIA. predicting this capacity could double again to 40 GW by 2025 if further planned expansions are made.
California and Texas, which both saw all-time highs in grid power discharged by batteries this month, are leading the way in this growth, with outsized batteries helping manage the vast amount of clean but intermittent solar and wind energy that these states have added in recent years.
The explosion in battery deployment even helped keep the lights on in California this summer, when in previous years the state has experienced electricity rationing or blackouts during intense heat waves that cause air conditioning use to skyrocket and power lines to rise. electricity falls due to forest fires. “We can harness that stored energy and distribute it when we need it,” said Patti Poppe, CEO of PG&E, California's largest utility. he said last month.
“It's been tremendous growth,” said John Moura, director of reliability assessment and performance analysis at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation.
“It is still a technology that we are getting used to working with because the system was not designed for it, but from a reliability perspective it presents a golden opportunity. This changes the entire paradigm of producing electricity, delivering it and consuming it. “Storage gives us a kind of time machine to deliver it when we need it.”
While scientists are clear that the United States and the rest of the world must radically reduce planet-warming emissions from electricity generation and other sources, the rapid growth of clean energies such as photo voltaic and wind power generates more spikes. and production valleys that need to be reduced. be actively managed to maintain a reliable network.
“Batteries can smooth out some of that variability during those times when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining. The Germans have a word for this type of drought: Dunkel Flute”Moura said. “So if you have a four-hour battery storage, that can get you through a Soakelflute.”
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Of course, wind and sun droughts can last longer than the longest-lasting batteries currently available, meaning they are not a panacea. A completely clean grid will also require a big upgrade to US transmission lines, for example, to quickly move renewable energy across the country to where it's needed. Permitting reform to allow this is a highly controversial issue, with many environmental groups opposed to looser regulations that they say will only fuel concerns about fossil fuels.
But batteries should be able to play an increasingly important role in supporting the energy transition, with the International Energy Agency last week calling them “a key source of global dispatch capacity.” The IEA forecasts that batteries will cover around 40% of all short-term electricity flexibility needs worldwide by 2050.
“Many changes are taking place, but monstrous measures are still needed if we want to make this energy transition,” Moura said.
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