As the world moves towards a zero carbon future, decarbonisation of electrical power generation forms a key component of achieving this collective goal. While the penetration of renewable electricity generation in the overall energy market has grown at an incredible pace, in order to secure a low and zero carbon future, further expansion is required globally and by 2026, global renewable electricity capacity is forecast to rise more than 60% from 2020 levels, to over 4 800 GW, equivalent to the total current global power capacity of fossil fuels and nuclear combined.
The successful growth of renewable electricity generation, such as wind and solar PV (both onshore and offshore), brings with it the unique challenges, such as the balancing of national grid infrastructure, due to their intermittent nature as mediums for electricity generation. As we all know, the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow, which is exactly why storage solutions, such as batteries, are of such importance now and for our future needs to ensure a continued and uninterrupted supply of clean energy.
Though there will be no single technological solution for a world run entirely on clean energy, the need for a significant investment and growth in installed storage capacity is unquestionable and battery storage is uniquely positioned to form an integral part of this framework.
Battery storage systems can be used for numerous roles in terms of grid services and localised uses. From a Grid services perspective, these applications range, from short-term balancing of supply and demand, to restoring grid operation following a blackout, to providing operating reserves or deferring investment in new transmission and distribution lines2. For localised industrial solutions, these include uninterrupted power systems (UPS) for commercial applications, telecoms infrastructure and data centres as well as providing other ‘off grid’ and ‘mini grid’ applications and solutions for developed and developing economies.
In addition to the grid scale, in ‘front of the meter’ applications (where power comes from an offsite location and the electricity must travel from the system through a meter to reach a home or business) for energy storage as mentioned above, localised residential and industrial ‘behind the meter’ applications will form an integral part of the mix. It is estimated that up to 25% of global storage capacity will be from ‘behind the meter’ by 20303 which will include battery based solutions such as the Cactos system currently under development and testing.
At Cactos, we are excited to be developing technology and energy solutions for a cleaner greener future and we thank you for signing up to this newsletter.
