Where is the battery storage energy going in the future?

In 2017, the energy storage policy continued to welcome the policy. At the same time, the strong demand in the electric vehicle market lowered the price of power batteries, but even so, China's battery storage market has not seen a big improvement.

Throughout the global battery energy storage market, the UK continues to maintain a strong momentum of development, leading the world; the United States, Australia, South Korea have 100 megawatts of energy storage projects; Europe, Japan, India, the Middle East and other regions of various commercial energy storage demonstration projects Debuted.

Regarding battery energy storage, I would like to talk about a few points:

First, the battery energy storage status

From the outside, China is an energy importing country, and 60% of primary energy is imported, which brings great risks to the energy security strategy. From the internal point of view, coal power consumption accounts for more than 60% of China's power structure system. (Before 2016), improving energy structure, actively developing new energy sources and cleaning green energy is undoubtedly a top priority.

Wind energy and solar energy are the absolute mainstays of new energy power generation, but they are characterized by large fluctuations and difficult to predict. The battery energy storage has the characteristics of fast dispatching response, flexible configuration, precise control and environmental friendliness, making it the best partner for new energy power generation. This is an industry consensus and has been recognized by relevant national authorities.

Although gas-fired power generation and pumped-storage power stations can also complete some of the new energy peaking work, the smooth output and frequency modulation effect is far less than the battery energy storage. Although wind power and photovoltaic power generation concentrated in the same place can naturally balance part of output fluctuations (such as wind and solar complementation effects), there will be occasions when there is no wind and no light. Therefore, a battery storage power station with a certain scale is new. Energy power plants are the ultimate choice for tracking planned power generation.

According to the prediction of the national authorities, by 2030, China's installed capacity of wind power generation will reach 833 million kilowatts. Assuming a 2% ratio of energy storage, the energy storage capacity of new energy power generation will reach at least 16 million kilowatts.

The energy storage power station that is compatible with new energy power generation has various forms of existence, such as optical storage integration, wind storage integration, and wind and light storage integration. From the aspects of use effect, utilization efficiency, scheduling convenience and business model, the author believes that 100 megabytes Independent energy storage power stations of the above size will occupy the mainstream position.

Second, the battery energy storage value

Battery energy storage has both economic value and social value (values other than economic value). From some perspectives, its social value far exceeds its economic value, such as its military value, power safety value, and energy strategic value. Wait. In terms of economic value, mainly depending on its size and use, such as charging treasure can only solve the mobile use problem of one or two mobile phone users a day; household energy storage or backup emergency energy storage power can only solve one household Part of the electricity or temporary power outage problem; user side energy storage usually only consider the use of peak and valley electricity price difference peak filling valley and demand side response and other issues.

The economic returns of several energy storage applications listed above are relatively long or not, and there are even certain investment risks (for example, the energy storage on the user side may extend the estimated return period due to the small difference between the peak and the valley).

In contrast, large-scale energy storage (above 100MWh) is characterized by fast response, precise control, and bidirectional regulation. For example, it can be used by the power grid for power grid security strategies such as frequency modulation and peaking. Rich (mainly FM service fees, capacity service fees, etc.), but the premise is to have an open electricity market (including the power-assisted service market).

Third, the main battlefield of battery energy storage in the future

Although new energy micro grid, distributed photovoltaic power generation and user-side peak shaving (peak-load shifting) will all use energy storage technology, the author believes that the large-scale application field of battery energy storage will be grid-side transmission and distribution and other aspects. A 100-megawatt-scale, independent battery-storage power station that can be directly dispatched by the power grid not only ensures the power supply security of the power grid, but also improves the power quality of the local area. The battery energy storage will even subvert the traditional power grid design concept and Design rules to improve equipment utilization, reduce waste of resources, and delay the expansion of the construction period.

With the gradual liberalization of the power market in the future, the power spot trading and power-assisted service market will certainly give birth to a large number of energy storage power stations.

Fourth, the main barriers for large-scale battery energy storage applications

In the past two years, in some conferences, some speeches such as "the energy storage technology is not good" and "the battery cost is too high" are often heard, which is far from our existing understanding of energy storage.

In terms of mechanism, battery energy storage technology and electric vehicle technology are the same. Taking BYD electric vehicles and battery energy storage as an example, the same power battery is used. The battery management system (BMS) and the converter system (PCS) also basically use the same technology and products. An electric car is a small mobile storage power station. One fact that is obvious to all is that in recent years, our country's electric vehicle market has developed rapidly, and many mature technologies have already reached the international leading level.

Due to the rapid increase in the size of the electric vehicle market, the price of power batteries is also declining year by year. It is estimated that the price of lithium iron phosphate battery cells for energy storage in 2018 will reach 1 Yuan per watt hour. According to this price calculation, the overall cost of the 2-hour lithium iron phosphate battery energy storage power station has dropped to less than 1/2 of the pumped storage power station (the current cost of pumping power station kilowatts is about 6,000 Yuan). Under standard operating conditions (room temperature 25 ± 5 ° C, charge and discharge rate 0.5 C, 95% DOD), the lithium iron phosphate battery cycle life can reach more than 8000 times (more than 70% of the remaining capacity). According to this calculation, the electricity cost of the 2-hour lithium iron phosphate system is about 0.25 Yuan, which is equivalent to the cost of thermal power.

The above calculation is only one of the reference methods for measuring the economic value of battery energy storage. The value of energy storage is reflected in the fact that although the battery energy storage system itself cannot generate electricity, in the various stages of power generation, transmission, distribution and use of the power grid, battery storage energy is of great significance and needs to be gradually recognized and continuously discovered.

According to the incomplete statistics of the energy storage Alliance's global energy storage project library, as of the third quarter of 2017, the cumulative installed capacity of electrochemical energy storage projects in the world reached 2244.4MW. In this regard, the author believes that the main reason for the development of China's battery energy storage market is not the technology and cost, but the transformation of the power grid concept, the openness of the power market and the state's support policies.

Fortunately, the country is gradually opening up the electricity market. One possibility is to pilot the two economically developed regions (and perhaps the northwest region) in South China and East China, and gradually open up the electricity spot market and the power auxiliary service market. In addition, the electricity sales market will also be open simultaneously, and the open electricity market in China is worth looking forward to in the next 3-5 years.

Recently, the National Energy Administration's "Working Plan for Compensating the Power Auxiliary Service Compensation (Market) Mechanism" is undoubtedly a good policy for the battery energy storage industry. Although it is still some way off, China is on its way to becoming the world's largest market for battery storage.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.