Copyright by Brady Leigh Stoll 2015 the Dissertation Committee for Brady Leigh Stoll Certifies That This Is the Approved Version of the Following Dissertation
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Copyright by Brady Leigh Stoll 2015 The Dissertation Committee for Brady Leigh Stoll certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Coupling photovoltaics and grid-scale energy storage: performance and sitability Committee: Mark Deinert, Supervisor Ross Baldick Thomas Edgar John Howell Li Shi Michael Webber Coupling photovoltaics and grid-scale energy storage: performance and sitability by Brady Leigh Stoll, B.A., B.S.Phy., M.S.E. DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY The University of Texas at Austin May 2015 I would like to dedicate my dissertation to both my family and to those who are practically family to me. My family has been incredibly supportive of me both in undergrad and grad school. I am so appreciative of my parents and siblings for listening to me talk through ideas and feelings, as well as providing food and entertainment for much needed distractions. I will miss you all in Colorado, but hope you come visit me often. Blobby, my almost-family, has helped me through grad school in so many ways. I appreciate the life advice, random discussions, and the knowledge that you all are there for me and for each other for anything. I am grateful for your relationships and the past 9 years. Acknowledgments I would like to thank my advisor, Mark Deinert, for his guidance and support in this work. He has provided me with an incredible amount of feedback and advice in regards to not only the research process and the work done, but also on how to be a better scientist. I appreciate the time and effort that you have put in to teaching me how to present, how to write, and how to research to the highest degree. I would also like to thank Dr. Ross Baldick, Dr. Thomas Edgar, Dr. John Howell, Dr. Li Shi and Dr. Michael Webber. From providing mentorship and guidance in my research questions to teaching me the basic subjects of mechanical engineering in core classes, these professors have each provided me with valuable guidance throughout my graduate education. I am extremely grateful for both your feedback and your guidance. I would like to particularly thank those who have directly helped me with my research, Dr. Andrew Osborne, Dr. Geoffrey Recktenwald, David Harding and Timothy Smith. You have each taught me so many things about research and coding. I am grateful for all of the time and effort you have invested in me and my research. The Women in Mechanical Engineering group as well as the staff of the Women in Engineering Program office have provided so much support outside of research my entire tenure in grad school. I appreciate all of the work that you do, as well as all of the friendships I have established through these groups. Finally, I would like to thank my family and for all of their support and love for me. I would also like to thank my boyfriend Peter for his faith in me and all of the encouragement. v Coupling photovoltaics and grid-scale energy storage: performance and sitability Brady Leigh Stoll, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2015 Supervisor: Mark Deinert The Fifth Assessment of the International Panel on Climate Change has called for a four fold increase in the use of low-carbon sources of electricity to help stabilize climate change by mid century. Many people look to solar power systems to help reduce carbon intensity, but cost and variability have been significant obstacles to their widespread deployment. However, the cost of photovoltaics has dropped significantly in recent years, and grid-scale energy storage technologies are available to allow for production of dispatchable electricity from photovoltaics. In particular, compressed-air energy storage is both low-cost and can be built in a wide variety of geologies as well as above ground. I show that coupling large-scale photovoltaic arrays and grid-scale storage allows for dispatchable electricity production at costs that are comparable to other low carbon electricity sources. I examine four load curves: base-load generation, on-peak generation, and averaged load curves for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and PJM Independent System Operators. I found that on-peak and ERCOT loads typically required the lowest amount of storage, up to 2000 MW he less than that for base-load generation. However, in some regions, and for some storage amounts, baseload output actually provided the lowest cost of electricity. I also show that such coupled systems could provide base-load electricity for ≤ 0:08=kW he vi on more than 40% of global land surface, with a capacity factor equivalent to that of the US nuclear fleet. Importantly, this is below the projected cost of electricity from new nuclear power systems. While cost is a major factor, also of importance is where systems of photovoltaics and grid-scale storage would provide the most benefit. Locations expected to provide energy at the lowest cost do not necessarily correspond to load and population centers, where the electricity is most needed. I use multi-criteria decision analysis techniques to perform a global study of the optimal locations for siting these coupled systems to maximize their social benefit. I found that the most ideal locations are generally located in Africa, Iraq, and southeast Asia, as these locations have both high irradiance levels as well as expanding populations and low grid connectivity. vii Table of Contents Acknowledgments v Abstract vi List of Tables xi List of Figures xii Chapter 1. Introduction 1 1.1 Motivation . .1 1.2 Renewable Energy . .4 1.2.1 Capacity Growth . .6 1.2.2 Policy . .7 1.2.2.1 Policy Measures . .7 1.2.2.2 Policy of selected countries . .9 1.2.3 Grid Integration . 13 1.3 Photovoltaic Market . 14 1.3.1 Historical Costs . 15 1.3.2 Learning Curves . 16 1.4 Grid-scale Storage . 18 1.4.1 Pumped Hydro Storage . 19 1.4.2 Compressed Air Energy Storage . 20 1.4.3 Batteries . 23 Chapter 2. Irradiance Calculation 25 2.1 Algorithm . 25 2.2 ISCCP Data . 26 2.3 Comparison to Ground-based Data . 31 2.3.1 Biowatt II . 32 2.3.2 MLML . 33 2.3.3 FIRE/SRB . 35 2.3.4 BSRN . 40 viii 2.4 Comparison of Transmission Formulation . 50 2.4.1 Single value, 0.6 µm........................ 51 2.4.2 Integration over Wavelength . 52 2.5 Visibility Correction . 54 2.5.1 Biowatt II . 55 2.5.2 MLML . 56 2.5.3 FIRE/SRB . 58 2.5.4 BSRN . 60 Chapter 3. Coupling photovoltaics and grid-scale energy storage 64 3.1 Base-load Energy flow model . 64 3.2 Levelized Cost of Electricity . 72 3.2.1 Cost Model . 72 3.2.1.1 Battery Costs . 76 3.2.1.2 CAES Geology . 77 3.2.1.3 Array Construction Time . 77 3.2.1.4 Natural Gas Prices . 79 3.2.2 Life-cycle Electricity Cost . 80 3.2.2.1 Cost Comparison . 84 3.2.3 Variance in the levelized cost of electricity. 85 3.2.4 Sensitivity Analysis . 88 3.3 Carbon intensity of the coupled system. 90 3.4 Global Analysis . 92 3.4.1 Feasible land fraction . 92 3.4.2 Population with access to feasible land . 95 3.5 Excess Energy . 98 Chapter 4. Load Following with Photovoltaics 105 4.1 Load Data . 107 4.2 Methods . 111 4.3 Results . 113 Chapter 5. GIS Multi-criteria Decision Analysis 117 5.1 Background . 118 5.2 Methods . 120 5.3 Data Description . 122 5.3.1 Geology . 122 ix 5.3.2 Land Slope . 124 5.3.3 Population Density . 125 5.3.4 Wetland Areas and Flood Plains . 125 5.3.5 Population . 126 5.3.6 Growth in Electricity Consumption . 127 5.3.7 Access to Electricity . 129 5.3.8 Cost of Electricity . 130 5.4 Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis . 131 Chapter 6. Conclusions 135 6.1 Conclusions from Irradiance Calculations . 135 6.2 Conclusions from PV-CAES Model . 136 6.3 Conclusions from Load Following Model . 137 6.4 Conclusions from GIS Analysis . 137 6.5 Suggestions for future work . 138 Bibliography 139 Vita 161 x List of Tables 1.1 CO2 equivalent emissions from various energy technologies . .5 1.2 Learning Rates for various technologies. 18 2.1 Coefficients used in Eq. (2.2) . 26 2.2 Biowatt Statistics . 33 2.3 MLML Statistics . 34 2.4 FIRE/SRB locations . 36 2.5 FIRE/SRB locations . 39 2.6 FIRE/SRB pixel correlation . 40 2.7 BSRB locations . 42 2.8 BSRB Correlations . 46 2.9 Biowatt Visibility Comparison . 56 2.10 MLML Visibility Comparison . 57 2.11 BSRB Correlations, including visibility . 62 3.1 Discount Model Inputs, PV. 75 3.2 Discount Model Inputs, CAES. 75 3.3 Discount Model Inputs, Battery. 76 3.4 Utility Scale photovoltaic array construction times. 78 3.5 Land Fraction with energy cost < $0.08=kW he............. 95 3.6 Population Fraction with energy cost < $0.08=kW he.......... 98 5.1 MCDA Criteria . 121 xi List of Figures 1.1 Total worldwide installed capacity of photovoltaics . .6 1.2 Price of photovoltaic modules, by year . 16 1.3 Price of photovoltaic modules, by installed capacity . 17 1.4 CAES facility . 21 2.1 Surface Solar Irradiance Diagram . 27 2.2 Example Irradiance Data. 30 2.3 Example Irradiance Data.