The Future of Electrical Energy Storage

The Economics and Potential of New Technologies

Publication Date	February 2009
Publisher	Business Insights
Product Type	Report
Pages	138
ISBN Number	not applicable
Product Code	RBI00282

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Summary

The Future of Electrical Energy Storage
The economics and potential of new technologies

Electrical energy storage (apart from pumped storage hydropower) is still a peripheral part of the power generation infrastructure. However, the advancing use of renewable energy, particularly wind power, will change the perception of storage and lead to significant increase of its use. At the same time, developments over the last ten to twenty years have brought a range of new storage technologies to the brink of commercialization. However, commercial projects are in short supply.

The Future of Electrical Energy Storage is a new management report published by Business Insights that analyses the future of electrical energy storage and how the advancing use of renewable energy, particularly wind power, will change the perception of storage and lead to significant increase it its use.

Understand the key drivers and resistors of electrical energy storage and its impact on the landscape with the help of this new report...

Some key findings from this report

There is just 90GW of electricity storage capacity in operation - around 3% of global capacity, which is much lower than in other energy industries.
As an emerging group of technologies, estimates on the cost of electrical energy storage vary widely, on average by more than 100% and typically much higher in battery technologies.
Capacitors are the most efficient of the existing electrical energy storage technologies with a round trip efficiency of >95%, while hydrogen storage is, by a large margin, the least efficient technology.
The US and Japan are the global leaders in large scale pumped storage hydropower plants with 9 and 12 plants respectively, compared to just 1 each in the UK, France and Australia.
Based on an analysis of fixed and variable costs, batteries are currently the most expensive technologies - a key limiting factor compared to more mature alternatives such as pumped storage hydropower.

This new report will enable you to

Identify the leading technologies for electrical energy storage, their development status and application with this report's in-depth analysis of the 7 leading electrical energy technologies (Pumped-storage hydropower, compressed air energy storage, batteries, flywheels, hydrogen storage, capacitors and superconducting magnetic energy storage), their development and future application.
Compare the cost of different electrical energy storage technologies in terms of capital, fixed and variable costs from data found in this report.
Understand the economics of electrical energy storage and the key factors that will drive economic competitiveness of each technology.
Assess the future potential for energy storage and the role of growing renewable energy capacity as a market driver.

Content

The Future of Electrical Energy Storage
Executive summary
- Introduction
- Pumped storage hydropower
- Compressed air energy storage
- Batteries
- Flywheels
- Hydrogen storage
- Capacitors
- Superconducting magnetic energy storage
- The economics of electrical energy storage
- The potential for electrical energy storage
Chapter 1 Introduction
- Introduction
- Storage technologies
- The report
Chapter 2 Pumped-storage hydropower
- Introduction
- The pumped storage principle
- Pumped storage technology
- Variable speed technology
- Plant siting
- Operational performance
- Renewable-pumped storage projects
- Costs
Chapter 3 Compressed air energy storage
- Introduction
- The CAES principle
- Compressed air storage sites
- Site availability
- CAES technologies and cycles
- Integrated wind energy and CAES
- CAES performance
- Proposed projects
- Costs
Chapter 4 Batteries
- Introduction
- The principle of operation
- Principle battery types
- Lead acid batteries
- Nickel-cadmium batteries
- Sodium-sulfur batteries
- Zinc bromide flow batteries
- Vanadium redox batteries
- Polysulfide bromide flow batteries
- Other battery types
- Battery properties
Chapter 5 Flywheels
- Introduction
- The flywheel principle
- Flywheel technology
- Performance characteristics
- Applications
- Costs
Chapter 6 Hydrogen storage
- Introduction
- Fundamentals of a hydrogen storage system
- Electrolyzers
- Hydrogen storage
- Electricity generation
- Performance characteristics
- Costs
Chapter 7 Capacitors
- Introduction
- Electrochemical capacitor fundamentals
- Types of electrochemical capacitor
- Performance characteristics
- Applications
- Costs
Chapter 8 Superconducting magnetic energy storage
- Introduction
- Superconducting fundamentals
- SMES applications
- Performance characteristics
- Costs
Chapter 9 The economics of electrical energy storage
- Introduction
- The capital cost of energy storage systems
- Operation and maintenance costs
- Energy storage efficiency
- Is energy storage economical?
Chapter 10 The potential for electricalenergy storage
- Introduction
- Storage applications
- Renewable energy
- Regulatory barriers
- Future outlook
- Index
List of Figures
- Figure 2.1: Pumped storage plants with capacities in excess of 1,000MW by country
- Figure 3.2: Estimated costs for storage caverns ($/kWh)
- Figure 3.3: CAES plant costs ($/kW)
- Figure 4.4: Efficiency vs cost by battery type
- Figure 9.5: Unit cost of energy storage systems ($/kW)
- Figure 9.6: Annual operational and maintenance costs for energy storage technologies ($/kW year)
- Figure 9.7: Round trip efficiency of energy storage technologies (Efficiency %)
- Table 2.1: Pumped storage plants with capacities in excess of 1,000MW
- Table 2.2: Typical operational and economic parameters and costs of pumped storage hydropower
- Table 3.3: Commercial CAES plants
- Table 3.4: Estimated costs for storage caverns ($/kWh)
- Table 3.5: CAES plant costs ($/kW)
- Table 3.6: Typical operational and economic parameters and costs for CAES plants
- Table 4.7: Utility scale lead-acid energy storage facilities
- Table 4.8: Utility-scale sodium sulfur facilities
- Table 4.9: Comparison of battery properties for utility applications
- Table 5.10: Typical operational and economic parameters and costs of flywheels
- Table 6.11: Typical operational and economic parameters and costs of hydrogen storage
- Table 7.12: Typical operational and economic parameters and costs of capacitors
- Table 8.13: Typical operational and economic parameters and costs of superconducting magnetic energy storage
- Table 9.14: Capital cost of energy storage systems
- Table 9.15: Annual operational and maintenance costs for energy storage technologies ($/kW year)
- Table 9.16: Round trip efficiency of energy storage technologies (Efficiency %)