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Home , Electricity, Energy storage

Scope: This article provides an introduction to Article 2: Key Concepts in some of the key concepts and vocabulary associated with storage. For Electricity Storage the full set of articles as well as information about Storage is a widespread . Every garage the storage . Specifically, dividing the contributing authors, the capacity by the tells us the please visit http://acee. and closet is a storage site. The inventory of a duration, princeton.edu/distillates. business consists of stored items. In the energy d, of filling or emptying:d = E/P. Thus, a system domain, oil in large cylindrical tanks at the edge of with an capacity of 1,000 Wh and a is stored energy. So is the wood in the trunk a power of 100 W will empty or fill in 10 hours, of a tree, the in a behind a , and while a storage system with the same capacity the in a tank containing molten made very but a power of 10,000 W will empty or fill in six hot by concentrated sunlight. Here, we are confining minutes. Thus, to determine the time to empty or attention to the storage of electricity. To qualify, fill a storage system, both the capacity and power energy must enter and exit the storage system as must be specified. The time to empty or fill provides electricity. a guide as to how a storage system will be used. An energy storage system based on transferring water We are also confining attention here to storage back and forth between two large at related to , which is one of the different altitudes (“pumped storage”) will typically three major frontiers for electricity storage today, take many hours to complete the transfer in either alongside storage for and for consumer direction. Pumped storage is suitable for situations . A crucial difference is that both weight where power is desired many hours after it can be and far less for electric power produced, such as occurs when wind is strong at applications. Many storage concepts that have night but demand is strong during the day. Batteries potential for power can be quickly ruled out chargeable and dischargeable over many hours are for the other two domains. included in systems that provide 24-hour electricity The feature of electricity storage systems that for a remote home with a rooftop solar collector and distinguishes them from electricity generators is no connection to any electric grid. their ability not only to produce electricity, but also Another important parameter for storage systems to take it in. Batteries are the electricity storage is how quickly the power can “ramp” up or down – systems that many people think of first. There are how responsive the storage system is. Battery and many other systems, however, and the goal here is storage systems can change the rate at to provide the generic vocabulary applicable to all which they can absorb or deliver energy so rapidly forms of electricity storage. Toward that end, we (changing the power level in or out by as much as introduce, in two pairs, four widely used storage a few percent per ) that they are competing metrics that determine the suitability of energy with gas- generating systems that can also storage systems for grid applications: power & vary their power output, but not as quickly. capacity, and round-trip efficiency & cycle life. We The distinction between the two units just then relate this vocabulary to costs. introduced that are amounts of time – the time required for full discharge and the time required Power and capacity to ramp up and down – have exact analogs when The power of a storage system, P, is the rate distance substitutes for : How far a at which energy flows through it, in or out. It is car can travel, starting with a full gas tank, before usually measured in (W). The energy storage the tank is empty is the discharge time. If the capacity of a storage system, E, is the maximum car can go from zero to 60 miles per hour in six amount of energy that it can store and release. It is , six seconds is a measure of the ramp often measured in -hours (Wh). A bathtub, for time. example, is a storage system for water. Its “power” Scientific notation allows a compact way to discuss would be the maximum rate at which the spigot and larger amounts of power: thousands of watts drain can let water flow in and out. Its “capacity” (kilowatts, kW), millions of watts (megawatts, MW), would be the amount of water the tub can hold. and billions of watts (gigawatts, GW). Similarly, Together, the power and the capacity determine how to discuss storage capacity: thousands of watt- long it will take to fill (charge) or empty (discharge) hours (kilowatt-hours, kWh), millions of watt-hours 5 (megawatt-hours, MWh), and billions of watt-hours performance falls below some predetermined level. (gigawatt-hours, GWh). For applications, Not surprisingly, the round-trip efficiency and the it is useful to know that one horsepower = 746 cycle life strongly affect the value of a storage watts and that car engines typically deliver upwards device and are the object of much research. In of 100 horsepower. Thus, a battery for driving an principle, storage elements can be replaced several will deliver at least tens of kilowatts times during the period of operation of a storage of power, while its range will be determined by system, but this constrains system design and is its storage capacity in kilowatt-hours. “Grid-scale usually undesirable. If a storage system needs storage” requires, roughly, storage capacity greater to swap its storage elements for new ones every than one MWh. five years, for example, and it is competing with a For vehicle and consumer electronics applications, generator that can run for 20 years, the cost of four the most common metrics modify the power and storage elements needs to be factored into the capacity units introduced here by dividing then cost comparison. Replacement costs can represent by either or volume, thereby conveying the a significant portion of total lifetime system costs. implications for situations where portability is The fractional “state of charge” (SOC) of a storage critical. One finds units like watts per kilogram (W/ device (a term most commonly used for batteries kg) and kilowatt hours per cubic meter (kWh/m3). but applicable to all storage systems) is the energy We will not be using these units here. stored at that moment divided by the maximum Round-trip efficiency and energy that can be stored. One refers to a deep discharge cycle when a storage system is emptied cycle life and filled almost completely; for example, the An ideal cycle for an electricity storage system is SOC might go back and forth between 0.9 and a sequence where some amount of electricity is 0.1. A discharge cycle might be called shallow if used to add energy to the storage system and then the SOC varies between 0.6 and 0.4. The cycle exactly the same amount of electricity is produced life of a storage system will generally be longer – when energy is extracted from the storage system sometimes much longer – when a storage system while it returns to a state that is exactly the same undergoes only shallow cycles rather than deep as the initial state. discharges, because deep discharge, like fast discharge, adds its own irreversibilities that are In all real cycles, this cannot happen: not all detrimental to the storage device. of the electricity stored can be retrieved, and the initial state is somewhat modified. During When a storage system can perform adequately for charging, electricity taken from the grid is converted many cycles it is called “reversible,” and if it is a into another form of energy, e.g. lifting water, battery it is called “rechargeable.” compressing air, spinning a flywheel, separating electrical charges, making/breaking chemical Storage system cost bonds. During discharging, whichever the process, The total cost of an electricity storage system it must be reversed. In all cases these conversion reflects both capital costs and operating costs. processes have irreversibilities such as resistances For most storage systems the operating cost is in circuits, in flywheel bearings, and friction a small fraction of the total storage cost, and the in pipes carrying water between an upper and a focus is on capital costs. The total capital cost, lower reservoir. The result is that heat is produced in turn, is often separated into two components: and less electricity can be extracted from a storage costs associated with moving stored energy in and system than was put into it, when the system out (power costs, in $/kW) and costs associated returns to its initial state. The is round-trip efficiency with the size of the storage system (energy costs, the energy delivered, divided by the energy received. in $/kWh). The fractions of the total capital cost The rate of filling impacts the round-trip efficiency assignable to power-related and the energy-related – usually less capacity can be accessed when a costs vary with the storage . storage system is filled very quickly compared to The ability to drive down total costs through very slowly. Therefore, power and capacity useful research and development (R&D) and commercial are not independent. The round-trip efficiency will deployment depends on how novel the storage also be less after a storage device is filled and system is. For mature such as emptied many times, compared to its value when pumped storage, there may be little opportunity for the storage device is new. The is the cycle life significant cost reductions, because the required number of cycles of filling and emptying before the 6 equipment is already in wide commercial use. For so storage faces similar competition in both cases. newer technologies, costs are likely to fall as a Immediate benefits provided by storage systems result of the “learning by doing” that accompanies can also be provided by a generator already running extensive commercial deployment. on the grid that is able to reduce its output quickly. Delayed benefits of storage can also be provided by The cost of a storage system is traded against running a generator at the later time. the revenue it generates from providing various services. It is useful to distinguish between Chemical storage presents a special case, because services that provide benefits immediately and the stored energy can be directed toward another only after some time passes. Storage can provide market. Suppose electricity is stored as immediate benefits by absorbing energy when via the of water. At a later time, the demand falls and thereby enabling operating hydrogen can be combined with (e.g., in generators not to curtail their power, which can a cell) to produce electricity (perhaps with a be costly. Storage can provide delayed benefits by round-trip efficiency of two-thirds). However, the decoupling electricity production from electricity hydrogen can also be sold for use in the production delivery, thereby enabling the shifting of energy of chemicals. In this case, the storage function is delivery from an earlier time to a later time. Both undermined. The sale of hydrogen becomes an off- benefits can also be provided by power generators, ramp of electricity storage.

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