Grid batteries also have a halo effect for other electricity generators. Most thermal power plants – sewing, gas, nuclear – repercussions at a regular rate. The rise in power from top to bottom to match the demand takes time and costs money, but with the batteries that absorb part of the variability, thermal power plants can remain closest to their most effective pace, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and maintain the costs in failure.
“It's a bit like hybridize your car,” said Zahurancik. “If you think of a Prius, you have an electric motor and you have a petrol engine and you improve gas consumption because the battery absorbs the whole variation.”
Another characteristic of the grid battery is that they can reduce the need for costly grid upgrades, said Stéphanie SmithHead of operation at Eolian, who finances and develops grid energy storage systems. You don't have to build power lines to meet the maximum absolute electricity needs if you have a battery – on the generator side or on the request side – to explain some additional electrons if necessary.
“What we do with autonomous batteries, more and more those you get, you start to relieve needs or at least shelter things like a new transmission construction,” said Smith. These batteries also allow the grid to adapt more quickly to the modification of energy needs, such as a factory stops or when a new data center spreads.
In balance, this leads to a more stable, efficient, cheaper and cleaner electrical network.
Load
As good as they are, lithium-ion batteries have their limits. Most batteries on the network are designed to store and ship electricity in two to eight hours, but the network also needs means to store energy for days, weeks, and even months from the request for electricity change throughout the year.
There are also fundamental imminent challenges for grid -scale storage. Like most technologies in the network, energy storage requires a large initial investment that takes decades to reimburse, but there is a lot of uncertainty Trump administration prices will affect battery imports, if there will be a recession, and if this disruption will slow the growth in electricity demand in the years to come. The extraordinary appetite for batteries increases competition for the required raw materials, which can increase their prices.
However China is currently dominating the world supply chainThe United States is working to enter. billions invested in energy storage factoriesSupply and research channels. There is dozens of battery factories in the United States Now, although most are addressed to electric vehicles. There are 10 American factories that should start this year, which would increase the total EV battery manufacturing capacity for 421.5 Gigawattheures per year. The total manufacturing of global batteries should reach About 7,900 gigawattheures in 2025.
There is also a long and growing project waiting to connect to the electrical network. Interconnection Files for all energy systems, but in particular solar energy, wind and batteries, generally the last three years or more While project developers produce reliability studies and face delays in regulatory mounting paperwork.
The Trump administration also works to cancel the incentives around clean energy, in particular the law on the reduction of inflation 2022. The law has established robust incentives for clean energy, especially Tax credits for autonomous network energy projects. “I worry about IRA because it will change the curve, and honestly, we cannot afford to change the curve for the moment with any form of clean energy,” said Smith. On the other hand, Trump's prices can possibly stimulate even more battery manufacturing in the United States.
However, energy storage across public services is a small tranche of the sprawling American electrical network, and there is a huge place to develop. “Even if we accelerate and go quickly, overall, we don't have much,” said Zahurancik. “You can easily see storage become 20 or 30% of the installed energy capacity.”
