Bottling Sunlight1: Using Energy Storage Technology As a Lens to View the Factors Affecting Technological Change in the Electricity Supply Industry
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This report can be found at www.acola.org.au © Australian Council of Learned Academies Bottling sunlight1: using energy storage technology as a lens to view the factors affecting technological change in the electricity supply industry Dana Sanchez November 2014 Working paper This working paper contributes to Securing Australia’s Future (SAF) Project 05. 1 The first man I saw was of a meagre aspect, with sooty hands and face, his hair and beard long, ragged, and singed in several places. His clothes, shirt, and skin, were all of the same colour. He has been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers. He told me, he did not doubt, that, in eight years more, he should be able to supply the governor’s gardens with sunshine, at a reasonable rate: but he complained that his stock was low, and entreated me ‘to give him something as an encouragement to ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear season for cucumbers.’ Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, Chapter 5. 1 This report can be found at www.acola.org.au © Australian Council of Learned Academies Contents Overview ................................................................................................................................................. 3 1. Change and uncertainty in the energy system ........................................................................... 4 1.1. Variable peak demand ........................................................................................................ 5 1.2. Uptake of new energy technologies by consumers ............................................................ 6 2. Energy storage technology ......................................................................................................... 8 2.1. Does the Australian electricity market have the capacity to adopt new energy storage technologies? ................................................................................................................................ 13 2.2. Interdependence of energy storage technologies with other technologies .................... 14 2.3. Evaluating energy storage technologies ........................................................................... 19 3. Change and uncertainty in the energy system ......................................................................... 20 3.1. User pays? ......................................................................................................................... 21 3.2. Feed-in tariffs and schemes .............................................................................................. 24 3.3. Vested interest .................................................................................................................. 24 3.4. Picking a technology winner ............................................................................................. 25 3.5. Niche markets ................................................................................................................... 26 3.6. Market mechanisms .......................................................................................................... 27 3.7. Timescales ......................................................................................................................... 27 Appendix 1: What problems are we trying to solve? ....................................................................... 30 Appendix 2: Prioritised activities to advance energy storage technologies ..................................... 33 Appendix 3: Examples of energy storage facilities in Australia ........................................................ 35 References ........................................................................................................................................ 36 2 This report can be found at www.acola.org.au © Australian Council of Learned Academies The purpose of this paper is to use energy storage as a lens to view a broad range of factors affecting technological change in a large and complex system - the electricity network. This paper does not attempt to analyse energy storage options for Australia. There exist a number of excellent reports that already do that, some of which the working paper summarises in Section 2.1 Does the Australian electricity market have the capacity to adopt new energy storage technologies? Overview Access to reliable and affordable electricity has transformed households, industries and the broader economy. Today’s electricity system faces many challenges – ageing infrastructure, declining average demand, and integration of variable and distributed2 energy from renewable energy sources. Energy storage technologies have the potential to deal with uncertainty in the electricity system and allow for greater flexibility to deal with change. Energy storage can improve system stability and efficiencies across the electricity grid. It allows household and commercial customers greater choice in meeting their energy needs. Storage also offers small and remote communities a viable alternative for electricity supply. Examples of energy storage technologies include pumped hydro, compressed air, flywheels, thermal energy storage, flywheels, fuel cells and batteries. Energy storage technologies vary in their ability to respond to demand, transmission, flexible generation and energy management practices. Assessment of the costs and benefits of energy storage technologies must take into account the application and use of each technology at different stages in the electricity system. No one storage technology meets all the requirements of energy storage. A portfolio of storage technologies will be required to meet the needs of different applications. Suitability depends on key energy storage parameters such as energy density, power, charge rates, discharge rates and lifecycle. Advances in the performance of any technology will depend on a range of factors, including physical and chemical constraints. For example, battery technology has progressed more slowly than other areas of electronics in the past few decades. The amount of power available in a battery is dependent on chemical composition and battery design. The traditional electricity network can be transformed into a smart grid by adding technologies such as smart sensors, IT systems, smart meters and a communications network. Energy storage will play a significant role in developing a reliable and flexible smart grid system. The electricity network can be viewed as a techno-institutional complex. Technological systems can be deeply embedded in institutional structures that lead to lock-in. Lock-in can manifest in many ways, for example in the resistance to changes in social norms, technology inertia, companies, institutions and governments. When lock-in occurs in a system as large and complex as the electricity system then interdependencies, sunken costs and vested interests can become substantial barriers to change. 2Distributed generation refers to decentralised energy that is generated or stored by multiple, small, grid- connected devices such as household solar PV panels 3 This report can be found at www.acola.org.au © Australian Council of Learned Academies To reduce the impact of vested interest and technological lock-in, policy should support the growth of new niche industries. Niche markets can play a crucial role in the development, improvement and diffusion of emerging technologies. There are a range of technical and non-technical solutions that can mitigate many of the problems faced by the electricity grid. These include building more poles and wires, installing underground wires, using energy storage technologies, consumer behavioural changes, ensuring accurate pricing structures, and regulating for lower emissions and grid stability. There is no single clear solution, no one-size fits all answer. Increasingly, consumers are making environmental, financial and social choices about the energy they use. The electricity grid needs to become more flexible and accept the changing relationship of consumers with energy. A reliable and efficient modern electricity grid requires greater interaction between consumers, industries and regulators. Changes in technology are difficult to predict. Government can allow for change in the system and for unforseen innovation by choosing to regulate via a market rather than seek to prescribe a specific technology as the best option. Governments that legislate for an ultimate end goal (e.g. carbon emissions reduction) and allow business to determine for themselves how to achieve that goal, remove the need to predict future technology advances. 1. Change and uncertainty in the energy system Electricity infrastructure is essential for most functions in the home, business and the broader economy. The transformative effect of electricity makes it important to Australia’s economy on a national and global scale. Economic growth and improved living standards can be directly attributed to so-called ‘general-purpose technologies’ such as electricity. Such technologies are significant in their ability to spread across most sectors, improve over time and support new innovations (Jovanovic et al., 2005). There is increasing demand for reliable electric power in all economies. More recently in Australia, electricity consumption and peak demand have been decreasing (see Figure 9), but total primary energy consumption