ETA 2021 Strategic Plan - Flipbook - Page 19
However, the disadvantage that stands out when
considering Li-ion as a potential solution to the
storage needs for sustainability and resilience
is that it is not fundamentally designed for long
durations. Extending the amount of energy that
can be stored, either to increase the scale of
the system or to sustain longer discharge times
needed for meeting sustainable and resilient
energy goals, requires adding more cells, along
with more active material, conductive sheets,
and cell containers. The volume of materials
directly scales with the amount of energy that
can be stored. Sustaining recent cost reductions
will be hampered by the underlying raw material
costs required to make each cell. Ultimately,
these raw material costs will prevent Li-ion
batteries alone from meeting sustainable and
resilient energy goals.
out. ESDR is helping research the ways in which
new storage solutions could lead to new ways of
managing energy supply and demand.
Now is the time to rethink how large-scale
energy storage technologies can be designed to
use low-cost, abundant raw materials, scale to
large sizes economically, and reduce material
needs, where possible. For example, a thermal
based storage system can take advantage of
natural self-insulation that occurs at large scales
but that does not occur at small scales, reducing
insulation costs as the system grows larger.
Similarly, battery technologies that can minimize
the need for extra materials as the system size
grows larger will facilitate the project economics
of large systems. Within ETA, such concepts
are being tested using a suite of technologies,
including computer modeling for planning and
detailed characterization tools for testing and
diagnosis.
The importance of electrochemical energy
storage has grown substantially over the past
decades and has reached an unprecedented
level as electrification of transportation and
integration of alternative energy sources move
into widespread implementation. The key
industrial targets for electrochemical energy
storage for transportation are dollars per
watt-hour, expanded temperature range, long
life, and increased energy density; whereas
stationary grid applications share the cost and
lifetime targets, but high energy density is less
important than high efficiency. Advanced Li-ion
batteries are approaching broad application in
electric vehicles and are likely to be a dominant
technology for the foreseeable future. These
advancements in Li-ion battery technology
have been already leveraged by stationary
applications, with the majority of new gridconnected storage resources using lithiumbased chemistries. However, the cost of this
technology is too high, and new electrochemical
storage systems have to be designed to meet
demand for a variety of applications and cycle
regimes in the existing and future transportation
and grid infrastructure.
Another challenge associated with large battery
installations, regardless of technological
solution, is that they inherently will require large
up-front capital costs. Financing these projects
will require confidence from stakeholders that
they will deliver positive economic value over
their lifetime. The opportunities for a longduration energy storage technology to benefit
the evolving energy grid need to be clearly laid
34
|
E TA S t r a t e g i c P l a n 2 0 2 1 - 2 0 3 0
Focus Areas
ETA is exploring a wide variety of technology
classes that can meet the demand for
economical and geographically flexible storage
at a range of energy capacities and chargedischarge cycle regimes. Broadly, these
can be classified into three focus areas: (1)
Electrochemical Energy Storage, (2) Chemical
Energy Storage, and (3) Thermal Energy Storage.
Electrochemical Energy Storage
Chemical Energy Storage
Detailed Approach
A major challenge for currently utilized and
prospective chemical energy storage systems is
cost competitiveness with other energy storage
media. Cost reductions are needed both in the
synthesis of hydrogen or other energy-dense
carriers such as ammonia or alcohols, and
in the chemical storage components. Major
advancements must be made to reduce costs by
developing non-noble metal catalysts, bipolar
plates, membranes, and storage media, and by
lowering the cost of manufacturing methods for
electrolyzers used in chemical-carrier synthesis.
This initiative focuses on a comprehensive R&D
strategy to achieve significant advancements
across the wide range of energy storage
technologies and to address critical barriers
to development and deployment at scale in
industrial, urban, and transportation sectors.
Proposed technologies will demonstrate
feasibility and impact by (1) conducting a technoeconomic analyses (TEA) to establish the clear
need for the technology, (2) leveraging computer
models and theoretical analysis to evaluate and
optimize the technology, and (3) conducting
laboratory experiments to characterize
technology performance. Successful concepts
will demonstrate bench-scale technologies that
serve as a proof-of-concept and present technoeconomic analyses to demonstrate pathways for
scale-up.
Thermal Energy Storage
Approximately 15% of global energy
consumption is directly attributed to building
heating and cooling. Thermal energy storage
systems can convert electrical energy to heat
and store it with ~98% net efficiency, making it a
particularly attractive option for cases in which
the end use is thermal. Benefits of thermal
energy storage include a low cost of storage
media (and thereby low costs of increasing
storage duration) and natural self-insulation as
system sizes grow larger, reducing insulation
costs for larger systems.
Moving technologies to commercialization
will be supported by the development of
advanced models and tools to demonstrate
the value proposition of long-duration storage.
In particular, long-term grid planning models
need to be adapted to recognize the ability for
long-duration storage to enhance grid resilience,
resize or eliminate other infrastructure
investments, and enable higher penetrations of
variable renewable energy. Clear demonstration
of these values to grid planners, regulators,
and investors will enable long-duration storage
technologies to obtain the financing needed for
large-scale deployment.
E TA S t r a t e g i c P l a n 2 0 2 1 - 2 0 3 0
|
35
