IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v146y2020icp196-204.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How big a battery?

Author

Listed:
  • van Kooten, G. Cornelis
  • Withey, Patrick
  • Duan, Jon

Abstract

Countries are investing in renewable energy such as wind or solar to meet electricity demand and minimize CO2 emissions. Due to the intermittent nature of these energy sources, back-up generating assets or adequate storage is needed to meet peak demand. In this study, we evaluate the extent to which an electricity grid can rely on intermittent renewable energy (wind and solar) if a ‘black box’ battery is used for storage. We examine the potential for 100% generation from wind and solar, as well as scenarios that are consistent with a policy to eliminate coal generation. A constrained optimization model is used that minimizes thermal generating capacity and battery size subject to load and battery constraints. Our application is to the fossil-fuel dependent Alberta electricity system. Our results suggest that it might be difficult and costly to supply the grid with 100% renewable energy. Replacing coal with renewable energy and using natural gas and a battery as back-up would be feasible, but would require a very large battery and result in high costs. Other storage methods should be considered to facilitate increased generation from renewable sources.

Suggested Citation

  • van Kooten, G. Cornelis & Withey, Patrick & Duan, Jon, 2020. "How big a battery?," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 196-204.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:146:y:2020:i:c:p:196-204
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2019.06.121
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148119309553
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.renene.2019.06.121?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timilsina, Govinda R. & Cornelis van Kooten, G. & Narbel, Patrick A., 2013. "Global wind power development: Economics and policies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 642-652.
    2. Weitemeyer, Stefan & Kleinhans, David & Vogt, Thomas & Agert, Carsten, 2015. "Integration of Renewable Energy Sources in future power systems: The role of storage," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 14-20.
    3. Havranek, Tomas & Irsova, Zuzana & Janda, Karel & Zilberman, David, 2015. "Selective reporting and the social cost of carbon," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 394-406.
    4. Mathiesen, Brian Vad & Lund, Henrik & Karlsson, Kenneth, 2011. "100% Renewable energy systems, climate mitigation and economic growth," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 488-501, February.
    5. Richard S.J. Tol, 2018. "The impact of climate change and the social cost of carbon," Working Paper Series 1318, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    6. Elliston, Ben & MacGill, Iain & Diesendorf, Mark, 2013. "Least cost 100% renewable electricity scenarios in the Australian National Electricity Market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 270-282.
    7. Connolly, D. & Lund, H. & Mathiesen, B.V. & Leahy, M., 2011. "The first step towards a 100% renewable energy-system for Ireland," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 502-507, February.
    8. G. Cornelis van Kooten & Rachel Lynch & Jon Duan, 2016. "Is there a Future for Nuclear Power? Wind and Emission Reduction Targets in Alberta," Working Papers 2016-03, University of Victoria, Department of Economics, Resource Economics and Policy Analysis Research Group.
    9. G. Cornelis van Kooten, 2016. "The Economics of Wind Power," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 181-205, October.
    10. Lamont, Alan D., 2008. "Assessing the long-term system value of intermittent electric generation technologies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 1208-1231, May.
    11. Elliston, Ben & MacGill, Iain & Diesendorf, Mark, 2014. "Comparing least cost scenarios for 100% renewable electricity with low emission fossil fuel scenarios in the Australian National Electricity Market," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 196-204.
    12. G Cornelis van Kooten & Jun Duan & Rachel Lynch, 2016. "Is There a Future for Nuclear Power? Wind and Emission Reduction Targets in Fossil-Fuel Alberta," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(11), pages 1-14, November.
    13. Denholm, Paul & Hand, Maureen, 2011. "Grid flexibility and storage required to achieve very high penetration of variable renewable electricity," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 1817-1830, March.
    14. Pindyck, Robert S., 2019. "The social cost of carbon revisited," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 140-160.
    15. McWilliam, M.K. & van Kooten, G.C. & Crawford, C., 2012. "A method for optimizing the location of wind farms," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 287-299.
    16. Komiyama, Ryoichi & Fujii, Yasumasa, 2014. "Assessment of massive integration of photovoltaic system considering rechargeable battery in Japan with high time-resolution optimal power generation mix model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 73-89.
    17. Cochran, Jaquelin & Mai, Trieu & Bazilian, Morgan, 2014. "Meta-analysis of high penetration renewable energy scenarios," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 246-253.
    18. Mason, I.G. & Page, S.C. & Williamson, A.G., 2010. "A 100% renewable electricity generation system for New Zealand utilising hydro, wind, geothermal and biomass resources," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 3973-3984, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Coilín ÓhAiseadha & Gerré Quinn & Ronan Connolly & Michael Connolly & Willie Soon, 2020. "Energy and Climate Policy—An Evaluation of Global Climate Change Expenditure 2011–2018," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-49, September.
    2. Chowdhury, Jahedul Islam & Balta-Ozkan, Nazmiye & Goglio, Pietro & Hu, Yukun & Varga, Liz & McCabe, Leah, 2020. "Techno-environmental analysis of battery storage for grid level energy services," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Heard, B.P. & Brook, B.W. & Wigley, T.M.L. & Bradshaw, C.J.A., 2017. "Burden of proof: A comprehensive review of the feasibility of 100% renewable-electricity systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 1122-1133.
    2. Hansen, Kenneth & Breyer, Christian & Lund, Henrik, 2019. "Status and perspectives on 100% renewable energy systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 471-480.
    3. Riesz, Jenny & Elliston, Ben, 2016. "Research and deployment priorities for renewable technologies: Quantifying the importance of various renewable technologies for low cost, high renewable electricity systems in an Australian case study," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 298-308.
    4. Laslett, Dean & Carter, Craig & Creagh, Chris & Jennings, Philip, 2017. "A large-scale renewable electricity supply system by 2030: Solar, wind, energy efficiency, storage and inertia for the South West Interconnected System (SWIS) in Western Australia," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 713-731.
    5. Wu, Yunyang & Reedman, Luke J. & Barrett, Mark A. & Spataru, Catalina, 2018. "Comparison of CST with different hours of storage in the Australian National Electricity Market," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 487-496.
    6. Vidal-Amaro, Juan José & Østergaard, Poul Alberg & Sheinbaum-Pardo, Claudia, 2015. "Optimal energy mix for transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources – The case of the Mexican electricity system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 80-96.
    7. Diesendorf, Mark & Elliston, Ben, 2018. "The feasibility of 100% renewable electricity systems: A response to critics," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 318-330.
    8. Henning Meschede & Paul Bertheau & Siavash Khalili & Christian Breyer, 2022. "A review of 100% renewable energy scenarios on islands," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(6), November.
    9. Zappa, William & Junginger, Martin & van den Broek, Machteld, 2019. "Is a 100% renewable European power system feasible by 2050?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 233, pages 1027-1050.
    10. Østergaard, P.A. & Lund, H. & Thellufsen, J.Z. & Sorknæs, P. & Mathiesen, B.V., 2022. "Review and validation of EnergyPLAN," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    11. Jon Duan & G. Cornelis van Kooten & A. T. M. Hasibul Islam, 2023. "Calibration of Grid Models for Analyzing Energy Policies," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-21, January.
    12. Kiwan, Suhil & Al-Gharibeh, Elyasa, 2020. "Jordan toward a 100% renewable electricity system," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 147(P1), pages 423-436.
    13. Jacobson, Mark Z., 2021. "The cost of grid stability with 100 % clean, renewable energy for all purposes when countries are isolated versus interconnected," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 1065-1075.
    14. Blanco, Herib & Faaij, André, 2018. "A review at the role of storage in energy systems with a focus on Power to Gas and long-term storage," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 1049-1086.
    15. Jacobson, Mark Z. & Delucchi, Mark A. & Cameron, Mary A. & Mathiesen, Brian V., 2018. "Matching demand with supply at low cost in 139 countries among 20 world regions with 100% intermittent wind, water, and sunlight (WWS) for all purposes," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 236-248.
    16. Mai, Trieu & Mulcahy, David & Hand, M. Maureen & Baldwin, Samuel F., 2014. "Envisioning a renewable electricity future for the United States," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 374-386.
    17. Mark Z. Jacobson & Anna-Katharina von Krauland & Zachary F.M. Burton & Stephen J. Coughlin & Caitlin Jaeggli & Daniel Nelli & Alexander J. H. Nelson & Yanbo Shu & Miles Smith & Chor Tan & Connery D. W, 2020. "Transitioning All Energy in 74 Metropolitan Areas, Including 30 Megacities, to 100% Clean and Renewable Wind, Water, and Sunlight (WWS)," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-40, September.
    18. Ma, Weiwu & Xue, Xinpei & Liu, Gang, 2018. "Techno-economic evaluation for hybrid renewable energy system: Application and merits," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 385-409.
    19. Elliston, Ben & Riesz, Jenny & MacGill, Iain, 2016. "What cost for more renewables? The incremental cost of renewable generation – An Australian National Electricity Market case study," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 127-139.
    20. Mathiesen, B.V. & Lund, H. & Connolly, D. & Wenzel, H. & Østergaard, P.A. & Möller, B. & Nielsen, S. & Ridjan, I. & Karnøe, P. & Sperling, K. & Hvelplund, F.K., 2015. "Smart Energy Systems for coherent 100% renewable energy and transport solutions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 139-154.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Renewable energy; Battery; Generation mix; Fossil fuels; Capacity factor;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • L94 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Electric Utilities
    • Q42 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Alternative Energy Sources
    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:146:y:2020:i:c:p:196-204. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/renewable-energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.