2024-04-30 13:00:53
G7 governments on Tuesday called for a sixfold increase in global electricity storage capacity by 2030, compared with 2022, growth that is crucial to the growth of renewable energy expected to combat global warming.
– Necessary
The battery, the basis for the growth of electric vehicles, is as important as that in wind turbines and solar power plants, which do not produce electricity 24 hours a day. If the world wants to use green energies as much as possible, it must have enough to store the excess electricity produced when there is a lot of sun or wind: to inject power when the user needs it, during consumption peaks, or in the evening, or when there is no wind … “It is the glue that holds the entire electrical system together”, we summarize at the International Energy Agency (IEA).
In 2023, according to the IEA, the deployment of batteries combined with wind or solar fields, solar roofs or even mini-grids grew at an unprecedented rate of 130% compared to 2022.
The main markets are China, then the EU and the USA. Next comes the UK, South Korea, Japan, but also developing regions including Africa where solar with storage is seen as a key to access energy.
However, global storage capacity will still need to multiply by six by 2030, the IEA calculated, if the world is to triple renewable energy within this horizon, as it committed to at the UN climate conference COP28.
Goal: replace fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) to keep warming below 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial times.
Required storage capacity (batteries and other) by 2030 is estimated at 1,500 GW, including 1,200 GW with batteries.
– Challenges
In less than 15 years, the price of batteries has fallen by more than 90%.
“In India, the combination of solar cells today is competitive with new coal-fired power plants. In a few years, this will be the case in China and with gas-fired power plants in the United States,” claimed the director of the IEA. , Fatih Birol, 25 April during the publication of a special report.
“But this progress is not fast enough to allow us to reach our goals in terms of climate and energy security,” he warned.
Costs will have to fall further, the economist insisted, which also requires diversification of supply chains.
Most batteries are produced in China. Among the announced projects, however, 40% are in advanced economies, particularly the US or Europe.
Another difficult topic is the resource of critical metals.
However, experts point to the future arrival of promising chemistries, particularly sodium-ion accumulators, alongside current lithium-ion batteries. “Technological development will reduce the amount of lithium” needed, emphasizes Brent Wanner, head of electricity at the IEA, lithium, cobalt and nickel are “the key metals in batteries” today.
– S’organizer
Besides batteries, other storage solutions are possible, but less accessible or quick to deploy.
Among them, hydroelectric dams of the “Step” type, some of which have existed for a long time, and which, equipped with a pump-storage system, raise the water in a higher basin when there is plenty of electricity, to bring it down once more and generate electricity when it is missing.
Another option: in the more or less near future, the transformation of electricity into hydrogen, storable and transportable.
Finally, renewable energy will not rely on storage alone. As is already somewhat the case, other so-called “flexibility” measures are coming: interconnection (European for example), measures to “handle” demand (trade on consumption hours, peak/off-peak hours…)…
All this will require action from industrialists, but also from public authorities (international standards, incentives for metal recycling, etc.), all players who have only just begun to organize themselves.
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