Recently, IHS CERAWeek, Houston, Texas, gave a speech with little coverage (
Fossil Energy Fan Club House)
Norman Bay, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)
, Announced a very unpopular audience in the industry.
"The development of storage has the potential to bring economic and reliability benefits to consumers [and]
Maybe even the rules of the game can be changed . "
He pointed out that recent analysis shows that energy storage costs should be halved within 5 years, "in some markets, energy storage systems may compete with traditional [cost]
Peak fossil fuel power plant".
This is an increasingly common view.
Julie Fox Gaut, senior vice president of sustainable investment at Pax World Management LLC, said last month, "storage has changed everything! . Dr.
Gorte has more than ten years of experience as a senior assistant and program director at the congressional technical assessment office.
Her position is supported by some new utility industry perspective that there may not be any new gas
Power plants built in North America after this decade
Instead, massive energy storage will be done instantly without any carbon emissions and air pollution.
The potential destruction of energy storage to the fossil energy industry is related to the rapid installation of solar photovoltaic (PV)systems.
For example, in the United States, the Energy Information Administration (EIA)
Recently released data show that in 2016, the new photovoltaic system will add more new power generation capacity than any other energy source, including fossil fuels.
According to The Washington Post, the environmental impact assessment report "The planned installation in 2016 includes nine.
Utility 5 GW-scale solar --(versus)8 gigawatts . . .
Natural gas and 6.
8 gigawatts of wind
This shows that solar PV can really crack down on competition because EIA data is only for large or utilities --
Solar arrays or farms of scale, excluding ultra-fast
The growing rooftop solar market will also add several gigawatts of capacity in 2016. " ()
Jon Wellinghoff, former president of FERC, also believes: "Solar energy is growing so fast that it will surpass everything. . .
It can double every two years ".
Of course, the main challenge of using solar energy more widely has always been the inevitable intermittent solar energy;
Sometimes cloudy, half the time is at night. Cost-
Competitive, reliable energy storage is now beginning to address this limitation and may completely ease it in a few years in many markets and other markets within a decade.
Elon Musk's Tesla is building their battery storage plant in Nevada to produce cheap energy storage for consumers for this reason.
You can now connect your solar panels to your Tesla battery pack, charge your Tesla car at night, and skip the gas station (
And Power Company)forevermore.
As Bloomberg New Energy Finance pointed out, "in distributed communities and roof applications, solar energy and storage may also lead to reduced pressure on distribution networks and delayed or reduced demand for infrastructure investment.
At a macro level, storage and solar energy can help reduce emissions by increasing the penetration rate of solar energy without posing a challenge of variability.
This combination could also be a rapid change in emerging markets.
Electrified tracks.
"In fact, a commentator at Bloomberg's point of view believes that we should now treat the rise of solar energy and the emergence of electricity storage as a virtuous circle :". . .
Instead of looking at solar energy and batteries as two separate things, we should look at them as a unified technology package. Solar-plus-
The battery will begin a dramatic shift (which)
Already started. . . ". ().
As this shift progresses, we will finally be able to bask in the sun's sunshine. Follow David W.
CFA Richardson on Twitter: www. twitter.