The next industrial revolution

The global energy economy must eventually be based upon renewable energy if the world is to have an even chance of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5°C—and grid-connected storage will play a vital role.

The grid-connected storage market—or “front-ofthe-meter storage”—is complemented by customer-sited storage for individual residences or commercial buildings. Industrial consumers can use storage to cut consumption peaks and provide backup power if there is a blackout. Meanwhile, vehicle-to-grid storage is also set to become more popular.

The power stored in batteries is dispatchable, sometimes almost instantaneously, which is not the case with gas- red peaking plants, which have traditionally supplied dispatchable power and storage advocates hope to replace.

Elsewhere, batteries can provide ancillary services or frequency control services—the so-called FCAS market—which still is a niche use, says Kashish Shah from Wood Mackenzie, a market research group. These services will be required more often by grid operators as they manage increased variability on a grid caused by greater renewable energy penetration.

Shah also notes a newer service that grid-connected storage can provide, inertia, which is standard