The commission defines “long duration” as eight hours or more. The members are aiming to meet their clean energy goals and to comply with an order issued last year by the California Energy Commission that requires power providers to develop 1,000 megawatts of long-duration storage by 2026. The group developing the Tumbleweed project includes power providers that together serve 1.6 million homes and businesses, mainly in the Bay Area. ![]() You will be redirected to ICN’s donation partner. We rely on donations from readers like you to keep going. #LITHIUM THE POWER HOUR FREE#ICN provides award-winning climate coverage free of charge and advertising. The batteries also are flammable to an extent that some other technologies aren’t. The batteries rely on rare materials like lithium and cobalt, the mining of which damages the environment. Lithium-ion batteries are a proven technology, but they also have proven risks and concerns. He used the analogy of two flashlights that have the same brightness, but one runs on two D batteries, and another runs twice as long with four D batteries.įor a battery storage system, which looks like rows upon rows of shipping containers, the longer duration means many more containers and higher up-front costs. I asked him what’s physically different between a lithium-ion battery that runs for four hours and one that runs for eight hours. “Maybe there’s still a lot of runway in the technologies that comprise lithium-ion battery projects, for advancement and innovation,” said Mark Dyson, senior principal with the carbon-free electricity practice at RMI, the research and advocacy group. ![]() This is a new part of the clean energy economy.Īnd, analysts have said that lithium-ion batteries would have a role to play in long-duration uses, even as emerging technologies get increasing attention. While there are few long-duration projects that use lithium-ion batteries, it’s important to specify that there are few long-duration battery projects, period. Matthew Sahd, a research associate at Wood Mackenzie, told me about this one. Several others are being developed, like the Waiawa Phase 2 project on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, which was announced in 2020 and is being developed by AES Distributed Energy.Īnother is a project being planned by LS Power to operate alongside the company’s Ravenswood power plant in Queens, New York. Prior to last week’s announcement in California, I wasn’t aware of any lithium-ion storage project that could run for eight hours.īut when I searched, I found examples, like National Grid’s eight-hour battery that went online in 2019 in Massachusetts. Mitsubishi is among the companies working on this. Hydrogen energy storage, which usually means converting electricity into hydrogen gas, storing it and later converting back into electricity.Hydrostor is working on several compressed air projects, including two in California. Compressed air energy storage, which I wrote about in December, is a system that pumps compressed air into underground caverns and later releases the air to turn a turbine and produce electricity. ![]() is working on a pilot project with a flow battery for Portland General Electric in Oregon. By increasing the size of the external tank, the battery can increase its duration, making it well-suited to long-duration uses. Flow batteries, which use an external tank to store a liquid that passes through the battery cell to produce electricity.So what are the other storage technologies in the market? The National Renewable Energy Laboratory issued a report last summer on current and emerging options. ![]() “We’d been hearing things about emerging technologies.”īut when reviewing the applications, the group concluded that lithium-ion batteries were the most likely to work as planned at a reasonable price, although the group hasn’t disclosed the costs. “When we went into it, we weren’t sure what we were going to see,” said Monica Padilla, director of power resources for Silicon Valley Clean Energy, a nonprofit that is part of the group. The power providers that signed the agreement selected the project from a list of proposals from about 50 developers that presented more than a dozen different technologies. The developer is REV Renewables, which is a subsidiary of LS Power of New York, a company that builds and operates power plants. The Tumbleweed project would be in Kern County, north of Los Angeles, and have a capacity of 69 megawatts and 552 megawatt-hours.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |