How Much Energy Storage Is Needed In A Solar & Wind Powered Grid? “What you need to be able to do is to meet is average load. You don’t necessary need to size batteries to cover the capacity of everything that is built,” Graham says. The CSIRO and Australia’s electricity network owners this week released a study that showed the best to deliver reliability, bring down costs and lower emissions in Australia was through a national grid powered almost exclusively by wind and solar. The cost savings over business-as-usual – a grid powered primarily by coal and gas – were significant, with consumer savings of between one-quarter and one-third of their bills. But it does beg a question: If the grid is powered by “variable renewable energy” (or VRE), such as wind and solar (see graph above), what will happen when, as the detractors say, the wind don’t blow and the sun don’t shine? The answer, of course, is storage. But not nearly as much as the cynics suggest. And at not nearly the cost. Australia will have a number of options for storage: battery storage located “behind the meter” (i.e. in households and businesses), battery storage located at grid level (next to wind and solar farms, and at various points in the network), plus hydro, pumped hydro, molten salt storage with solar towers, and other technologies such as fly-wheels. Right now, however, it looks like the most prominent will be battery storage, if only because it will be the favoured technology of the anticipated 10 million homes and businesses that will combine rooftop solar and storage to reduce their bills, do their bit for clean energy, and to ensure energy security. The CSIRO and Energy Networks Australia study was remarkable because it pointed out that – contrary to the political and ideological debate around wind and solar – these technologies can be relied upon to underpin the grid of the future and lower bills. Graham says that… http://bit.ly/2gtjkW4
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