Collective battery storage beneficial for decarbonized world
Date:
July 8, 2021
Source:
University of Otago
Summary:
Batteries are potentially a game-changing technology as we
decarbonize our economy, and their benefits are even greater when
shared across communities, a new study has found.
FULL STORY ========================================================================== Batteries are potentially a game-changing technology as we decarbonize
our economy, and their benefits are even greater when shared across communities, a University of Otago-led study has found.
========================================================================== Co-author Associate Professor Michael Jack, Director of the Energy
Programme in the Department of Physics, says reducing costs are seeing
rapid deployment of batteries for household use, mainly for storing
solar and wind power for later use, but they could have a variety of
uses in a future electricity grid.
"For example, they could be used to feed energy back into the grid when
there is a shortfall in renewable supply. Or they could allow a house to
reduce its demand on the grid during times of constraint, thus reducing
the need for expensive new lines.
"As we move towards more renewable energy, and increase our use of
electric vehicles, these services would be beneficial to a local community
and the national grid, not just the individual house with the battery,"
he says.
The study, published in journal Energy & Buildings, focused on finding
the capacity a battery would need to have to keep the peak demand below
a certain value for both individual houses and a group of houses.
The researchers considered both load smoothing around the average,
and peak shaving, where the battery ensures grid power demand does not
exceed a set threshold.
"Our key result is that the size of the battery required for this
purpose is much smaller -- up to 90 per cent smaller -- if the houses
are treated collectively rather than individually. For instance, if peak shaving occurred for demand above 3 kW per house, deploying batteries individually for 20 houses would require 120 kWh of storage, whereas
deploying them collectively would only require 7 kWh. Sharing batteries
or having one battery per 20 houses will be a much cheaper approach to providing these services.
"Another important finding was that as peaks are mainly in winter, the
battery would still be largely available for storing energy from solar
cells in summer, so this would be an additional service and not competing
with the main use of the battery," Associate Professor Jack says.
While electricity markets are not currently set up to harness this
potential, the situation is rapidly changing.
"There is currently a trial lead by Aurora Energy and SolarZero to use batteries in the way we have described in our paper to solve issues
with constrained lines in upper Clutha. Once proven, this model has the potential to become much more widespread," he says.
In the future, many households may have batteries and be using these, or batteries within their electric vehicles, to provide services to the grid.
These batteries and other appliances in homes and businesses will have
smart controllers that enable them to reduce demand or feed electricity
back into the grid to accommodate the fluctuations of variable renewable
supply and minimize the need for grid infrastructure. People responding
in this way would be paid for their services to the wider grid.
"This could enable a much lower cost, collective,
route to decarbonizing New Zealand's energy system." ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Otago. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.
========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Jason Mair, Kiti Suomalainen, David M. Eyers, Michael
W. Jack. Sizing
domestic batteries for load smoothing and peak shaving based on
real- world demand data. Energy and Buildings, 2021; 247: 111109
DOI: 10.1016/ j.enbuild.2021.111109 ==========================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210708103625.htm
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