Dan Rastler - We Need Cheap Energy Storage

By Eric Wesoff

It has become cliche to refer to energy storage as the holy grail of renewable energy. Actually, it's not energy storage that we need. We have that. What we need is cheap energy storage.

"Most storage technology is expensive so we spend a lot of time trying to figure out the value."

Those are the words of EPRI's Dan Rastler who spoke on Wednesday night at the monthly Silicon Valley Photovoltaic Society meeting at PARC.

EPRI

Mr. Rastler is the Program Manager for Energy Storage at EPRI.

Founded in 1973, EPRI is an "independent" non-profit center for public interest energy and environmental research center that receives about $350 million in funding each year. "Independent" is an approximate term in this case as EPRI's substantial budget comes in the most part from America's utilities. And utility agendas don't always map exactly with the public good. That said, it was an informative talk and Mr. Rastler did not seem too evil.

Smart Grid Defined

Rastler's talk looked at electric energy storage's role in the smart grid, defining the smart grid as "overlaying information control technology over the electric grid for efficiency and reliability," adding, "The buzzword is interoperability – how do you make everything connect across the entire domain from bulk generation to the customer?"

He made the distinction between smart grid on the utility side – where utilities are putting sensors and cameras on utility assets, "to where it really gets interesting"– the customer side where the smart grid can influence customer behavior.

Another important point he made was the need for scale – because anything less than 100 megawatts is not really important to a utility.

Industry Pain Points and Market Drivers

• The biggest driver the electrical sector is facing is carbon. "There is no single technology that is going to get us there." It's going to take a portfolio of technologies – solar, de-carbonizing, EVs, wind, nuclear, etc.

• Managing increased wind penetration – Texas could have 18 gigawatts of wind by 2015, California could have up to 12 gigawatts of wind by 2012. The intermittency of renewables like wind and solar need bulk storage to buffer that unpredictability.

• We are going to need $200 billion in transmission and $400 billion in distribution investment in T&D infrastructure over the next 15 years

• Peak is only 400 hours a year – storage and information control can help manage the peak

Advanced Energy Storage Technology

Rastler is a fan of advanced lead acid batteries. He pointed out a firm called Xtreme Power and declared that, "lead acid is going to re-emerge." Xtreme Power builds a solid dry cell rated as a 1-megawatt four-hour system for $2 million.

He noted a few other storage technologies nearing commercialization or ready for deployment at reasonable price points:

• A 400 megawatt-10hour CAES (Compressed Air Energy Storage) system
• A 1 megawatt–seven hour NaS system as substation grid support that costs $3,000 to $3,500 per kilowatt hour
• A 500 kilowatt-four hour ZnBr flow battery system that is meant to be transportable to where the pain point is
• "Lithium ion is getting to megawatt scale," he said citing a 1 megawatt-15 minute Li-ion system. He adds, "There are as many different Li-ion chemistries as there are California wines." There are currently early field trials by Altair Nano and A123 using Li-ion at utility scale.
• Redox flow batteries with a number of different electrolyte species

Costs of Storage

According to Rastler, "We need to get below $300 per kilowatt hour installed all in."

CAES is below $100 per kilowatt hour (but does use a fuel source).

Cost of Li-ion ranges from $400 per kilowatt hour to $1,200 per kilowatt hour.

Final Words

Rastler finished in saying that we have to get the cost structure down significantly and we need a smart grid and storage-aware regulatory policy.

He concluded saying that storage is "really an advanced materials play." The EPRI presentation can be downloaded here (.pdf).

Comments

[William Taylor:]

And, what about (BCON)'s flywheel storage? It is up and running, has virtually no carbon footprint, (unlike dirty miniature short life chemical reactors we call batteries), a long lifespan, and can be buried underground virtually anywhere (unlike capture and other systems like hydro which are very site specific and will function quietly and reliably for decades.

And how is it that you do not know this Eric???

I have seen Beacon Power's flywheels up and running and it is very impressive. Very! I would certainly list them as one of the strongest contenders if not the strongest.

Aug 16 10:45 AM

[Fred W:]

Please clarify from your article:
According to Rastler, "We need to get below $300 per kilowatt hour installed all in."
Capacity is not measured over time (kWh) as far as "installed all in" would go. kW and kWh are not the same although they have similarities. What is actually meant by 300 kWh installed all in?
If you believe these terms to be interchangeable, please explain.
Thanks.

Aug 16 10:47 AM

[Fred W:]

William,
BCON's "storage" is not the same kind of storage being discussed here...flywheels are used for very short term power issues--frequency regulation, smoothing out voltage sags and others. I believe the article is focusing on storage that could make renewables more dispatchable such that peak demand could be more consistently shaved.
If BCON can get past its near term cash flow issues, good things could be on the horizon for a company located in MA and has political "connectivity" (Markey and Frank)


On Aug 16 10:45 AM William Taylor wrote:

> And, what about (seekingalpha.com/symbo... flywheel
> storage? It is up and running, has virtually no carbon footprint,
> (unlike dirty miniature short life chemical reactors we call batteries),
> a long lifespan, and can be buried underground virtually anywhere
> (unlike capture and other systems like hydro which are very site
> specific and will function quietly and reliably for decades.
>
> And how is it that you do not know this Eric???
>
> I have seen Beacon Power's flywheels up and running and it is very
> impressive. Very! I would certainly list them as one of the strongest
> contenders if not the strongest.

Aug 16 10:56 AM

[john s. gordon:]

CAES has been used for some years in europe.
all you need is a large empty leakproof cavern & a compressor/expander set. if you want a more elaborate system use a combustion turbine (possibly NG fired) to capture the compressed-air energy.
drive the system with off-peak nuclear power. nukes need to be base-loaded anyway, it improves their longevity.
> jack

Aug 16 10:57 AM

[jerrydd:]

Good article. Fred battery capacity is priced in kwhr so he used it correctly.

A couple things is Lithium from my studies will cost less than anything else in 10 yrs except maybe sodium. There is way more than we can ever use and the other parts are low cost too. Just need to chemical, battery factories to ramp up.

But I disagree with the need being as much as it is. First we will not likely need more electric than we make now as eff, conservation take hold and more and more RE comes online, most home size units which are far more cost effective than wind, solar farms distant from the customers.

Nor will this home unit RE be any problem at all as they are spread out, there outputs average out for wind and solar mostly happens when power is needed most, Peak, by far more valuable power. So spread out solar enhances grid security, not hurt it.

Next CSP solar that can if the sun don't shine, can be fired by any fuel from wood gasifiers, pellets to NG giving power when needed. it could be callable by the utility if needed. Of course peak power gets paid much more for.

There is no energy shortage, just a cabal of politicans, big oil, coal, money, that don't want people making their own power for less so shamelessly give huge subsidies to them that if in them, would double their price, not including CO2 costs. .

Nor has the effective of EV's soon that both charge from the grid could put 50-200kw back in thew grid for short periods each!!
10k- 100kw cars could equal a coal powerplant outrput.

Even without storage our grid can already handle peak loads and that won't change, just the generators won't work as much as RE takes over a large % of the grid output.

Aug 16 12:31 PM

[Trane250:]

Jerrydd: Your logic is flawed and your command of the English language is pitiable. Why don't you "take a powder."

Aug 16 01:30 PM

[Road Runner:]

jerrydd, I agree with Trane250. Please take 5 minutes to proof read your comments before posting them.

I don't know whether your reasoning was flawed or not because I got so tired and annoyed of your poor grammar that I gave up on trying to read it. It seems arrogant to post comments with bad grammar because it is like saying "my time is more important than yours".

Aug 16 02:56 PM

[Eric Wesoff:]

William,
I most certainly am familiar with Beacon and they are a fine firm. This article was not intended as an extensive exploration of every available storage technology. That said, Beacon's flywheels are expensive and suitable more for frequency regulation and very short power drop-offs - not as bulk storage which is what the thrust of this article was about.
Thanks for reading and for your comment.
Eric Wesoff


On Aug 16 10:45 AM William Taylor wrote:

> And, what about (seekingalpha.com/symbo... flywheel
> storage? It is up and running, has virtually no carbon footprint,
> (unlike dirty miniature short life chemical reactors we call batteries),
> a long lifespan, and can be buried underground virtually anywhere
> (unlike capture and other systems like hydro which are very site
> specific and will function quietly and reliably for decades.
>
> And how is it that you do not know this Eric???
>
> I have seen Beacon Power's flywheels up and running and it is very
> impressive. Very! I would certainly list them as one of the strongest
> contenders if not the strongest.

Aug 16 03:10 PM

[Road Runner:]

I don't think that the need for affordable energy storage can be over emphasized. It is critical for the new world "electric economy" that weans the world off oil as it becomes scarcer and more expensive.

First, affordable batteries that meet stringent vehicle demands is essential to address the coming oil shortage. These batteries will allow vehicles to recharge from the electric grid instead of burning gasoline or sometimes diesel.

Almost all sources of energy besides oil is used to generate electricity and very little electricity is generated from oil. About 75% of oil goes to transportation fuels. About 45% of oil goes to gasoline. Without affordable vehicle batteries, the coming oil shortage will cripple the world’s transportation system, and thus the world economy.

Second, affordable energy storage is needed to make wind and solar handle more of the 24/7 base load. Some places like Denmark (home of Vestas) is already approaching the maximum amount of usable wind production without building large energy storage capacity into the electric grid.

Aug 16 03:18 PM

[Bears69:]

BCOn has been around for 10 years, plowed through $140m in that time, never made a dime, been significantly underwritten by taxpayers, and after all that, they now have something everyone is talking about...only it costs a fortune and will have minimal impact. Meanwhile similar technolgies with game changing advances like Power Tree Corp can exceed BCON's acheivments and for a fraction of the cost. I alsdo continue to be baffled by the blind eye that's been turned to batteries. Have we forgetten the materials are awful for the environment, hampered by lifecycle issues and did I mention costly?...

Aug 16 06:20 PM

[terravario:]

Much has been said about the need for affordable storage to "make wind and solar handle more of the 24/7 base load." The issue is said to be the intermittency of wind and solar that requires large storage or other backup capacity to make it work. We need to put this myth to rest, particularly for wind.

If one looks at a single wind power project, intermittency is an issue. For a large robust grid that includes wind power as the chief component, variability, not intermittency, is the issue. MISO and others now agree that wind power, deployed across a diverse regional north-south and east-west regional grid, can be characterized as baseload capacity. Variability can be addressed through the use of hydroelectric and pumped storage capacity (huge batteries that already exist in several major regions in North America).

For example, generating capacity in the Great Lakes region (Canada and US within the Great Lakes watershed) is currently 75+ gigawatts. This capacity serves a population of 42 million people in a relatively concentrated load center. The Great Lakes region is the third largest economy in the world (behind the US and Japan) and is responsible for roughly 10-15% of total greenhouse gas emissions. The regional wind resource, both onshore and offshore, is estimated to be 200+ gigawatts, one of the best in the world. Under the DOE of goal of 20% Wind by 2030, the, wind could, at a minimum, replace 15-20 gigawatts of current base load capacity within the Great Lakes region. We also have available several gigawatts of hydroelectric and pumped storage capacity at Ludington (MI), Robert Moses (NY), and Sir Adam Beck (Ontario) within the Great Lakes watershed to balance out such a robust and diverse grid. No need to wheel wind power from the Great Plains.

For more information, see the DOE 20% Wind by 2030 report and the Great Lakes Wind Collaborative website at <glc.org/energy/wind.

Aug 16 06:54 PM

[TinyTim:]

Thanks for the link to Rassler's presentation.

His comments on the Smart Grid are interesting as they indicate more than smart meters are involved.

Aug 16 08:43 PM

[Road Runner:]

terravario, Thanks for the informative comment. The lesson seems to be that good studies and planning can overcome much of the variability of wind. I hope these ideas are implemented for the Great Lakes region. We need all the electricity we can generate for the new electric economy.

On that note, Los Angeles has a HVDC (high voltage direct current) transmission line going about 500 into the wind farms of Utah. The city finds that late afternoon nature of the wind in Utah matches well with the late afternoon peak in electricity use in Los Angeles. Very pleasing discovery. Now they want to extend the HVDC line into southern Wyoming for the wind farms there.

Aug 16 10:01 PM

[realold:]

If you want storage,how about dams? In California, water flows out of a dam to generate electricity during the peak hours of the day and is pumped back up into the dam at night when spare capacity is available. The loss is less than 10%, so I have read. How about using energy produced by variable sources such as wind and solar to pump water uphill to use when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing.
Too simple?

Aug 16 11:17 PM

[lefty37:]

We have had cheap energy storage for years, even decades. Some of them are used just for standby & backup. they are also the absolute cheapest way to generate power. Once built, the prime mover is FREE. Instead of building new ones, there is a movement on dismanteling some of them. It is simply, HYDROELECTRIC.

Aug 17 06:34 AM

[jerrydd:]

Trane 250 wrote my logic is flawed. Please explain where? It's bad form to make such statements without explaining them. Much worse than a few missing comma's, etc. Your 'Why don't you take a powder' comment was just rude.

Roadrunner wrote
jerrydd, I agree with Trane250. Please take 5 minutes to proof read your comments before posting them.

JD You mean like when you wrote 500 but didn't say 500 what?

I don't know whether your reasoning was flawed or not because I got so tired and annoyed of your poor grammar that I gave up on trying to read it. It seems arrogant to post comments with bad grammar because it is like saying "my time is more important than yours".

Sorry but the small box we write in can be blamed for some of it and my lack of time the other. I'll try harder. But my facts are good from experience in actually making energy and my production experience.

Aug 18 08:42 AM