Why has energy storage become the darling of the energy Internet?

China Energy Storage Network: Promoting the consumption of renewable energy will still be the most important link in the future, and the wide application scenarios of energy storage are undoubtedly a good medicine to solve this problem. It can play a lubricating role in energy transformation in all links of the energy industry.

From the perspective of the overall development of energy, renewable energy is the future, but for a long time, it will still have to coexist with traditional energy, especially under the condition that the entire energy base is built for traditional energy. Renewable energy must develop, and traditional energy must exist. The former has abandoned wind, solar, and water, and coal-fired power has also become the target of public criticism. The energy revolution has undoubtedly given rise to many contradictions.

The emergence of energy storage seems to be able to solve most of the problems.

From the perspective of newcomers, renewable energy and energy storage are to some extent tied together, because one is unstable and the other is stable, and the combination of the two can better adapt to the existing energy base; from the perspective of old people, energy storage can play a good regulatory role for traditional energy, such as coal-fired power, which has an absolute advantage in the country, and find its own new development path when renewable energy develops in large quantities.

From the current point of view, the proportion of renewable energy in the energy structure is in a steady increase, but the consumption proportion is probably the most representative indicator of the results. At the end of 2016, the state issued the "13th Five-Year Plan for Renewable Energy Development", proposing the goal of non-fossil energy accounting for 15% and 20% of primary energy consumption by 2020 and 2030 respectively.

The "Electric Power Industry Statistical Data Collection" (2017 Statistical Express) shows that by the end of 2017, the total installed capacity of power sources in China was 1.78 billion kilowatts, of which non-fossil power sources accounted for 38.6%, and solar power generation and wind power accounted for 16.5%. In addition, the consumption proportion of non-fossil power sources in 2017 was 13.8%, an increase of only 0.3% compared with 1.4% in 2016, and the growth rate has slowed down significantly.

In other words, promoting the consumption of renewable energy will still be the most important link in the future, and the wide application scenarios of energy storage are undoubtedly a good medicine to solve this problem, and it can play a lubricating role in energy transformation in all links of the energy industry.

From a global perspective, a report released by Bloomberg New Energy Finance in 2017 stated that the global energy storage market is expected to double between 2016 and 2030, reaching 125 GW and a capacity of 305 GWh.

In China, in October 2017, five ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Development of Energy Storage Technology and Industry", and proposed the "13th Five-Year Plan" and "14th Five-Year Plan" development plans. The former requires that the development of the energy storage industry enter the early stage of commercialization, and the key role of energy storage in the transformation of the energy system is initially revealed. The latter requires that the energy storage industry be able to develop on a large scale and its role in promoting energy transformation and the development of energy Internet be fully demonstrated.

For a long time in the past, energy storage may have been as weak as a firefly, but in the next decade, energy storage will undoubtedly grow stronger and have an important impact on the entire energy.

The darling of energy internet

There are many concepts of energy Internet. We follow the official "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Development of "Internet +" Smart Energy", which states: "Internet +" smart energy (referred to as energy Internet) is a new form of energy industry development that deeply integrates the Internet with energy production, transmission, storage, consumption and energy markets. It has the main characteristics of intelligent equipment, multi-energy collaboration, information symmetry, decentralized supply and demand, flat system, and open transactions.

In the view of many experts, the energy internet still depends largely on the power grid or smart grid. Energy storage is also widely used in the power grid system, which is reflected in all aspects of power production, transmission and utilization. Therefore, the role of energy storage in the power grid and even the energy internet is increasingly reflected.

In other words, energy storage is the darling of future energy, especially in the energy Internet system.

First, on the energy production side, energy storage can effectively solve the impact of large-scale renewable energy on the power grid; on the consumer side, increasingly diversified demands also require the cooperation of energy storage.

According to Zheng Yaodong, deputy director of the Science and Technology Department of the Southern Power Grid, the core of the Energy Internet is the power system, the power grid. However, just like a power bank cannot always support the power of a mobile phone, battery energy storage is not an energy source, but just a transit station with capacity limitations. Its future development prospects are reflected in meeting the stable power supply needs and emergency needs of high-reliability users, alleviating the congestion of power transmission channels in centers and old urban areas, and shifting peaks to fill valleys, which will become the development prospects of energy storage systems in the Energy Internet.

In addition, Hui Dong, chief technical expert at the China Electric Power Research Institute, a scientific research unit directly under the State Grid, has three technical positionings for energy storage.

First, the large-scale access of fluctuating and intermittent renewable energy leads to grid stability, which requires the use of energy storage to improve the acceptance capacity;

Secondly, the traditional capacity expansion method is limited by the contradiction between resource constraints such as the layout of transmission corridors and the growing load demand. The introduction of energy storage can effectively alleviate the contradiction, delay equipment renewal investment, and improve the utilization rate of network resources and facilities.

Finally, the introduction of energy storage will improve the distributed energy access capabilities on the user side, the ability to respond to disasters, ensure power supply reliability, meet power quality requirements, and smooth out peaks and fill valleys.

According to the data, energy storage technologies include electrochemical energy storage, compressed air energy storage, heat storage, hydrogen storage, etc. It establishes a coupling relationship between multiple energy sources and is an indispensable component in the construction of smart grids and energy Internet, playing an important role in energy transfer, matching and optimization.

In June 2017, the National Energy Administration issued the "Notice on the Announcement of the First Batch of "Internet +" Smart Energy (Energy Internet) Demonstration Projects". In the project list, the Yanchang Petroleum 1GW Wind, Solar, Gas, Hydrogen and Animal Husbandry Energy Internet Demonstration Project, the Wind, Solar, Hydrogen and Storage Complementary Smart Microgrid Demonstration Project, the Huzhou Changxing New Energy Town "Source, Grid, Load, Storage and Sales" Integrated Energy Internet Demonstration Project and the Guangxi Qinzhou Fishery, Solar, Wind and Storage "Internet +" Smart Energy Demonstration Project all highlight energy storage in their project names.

In fact, the importance of energy storage is self-evident, and energy storage will play an increasingly important role in the next decade or even longer. In the future energy Internet, not only electricity, but also various forms of energy storage including heat storage and hydrogen storage will play an important supplementary role.

Commercialization becomes a reality

Unlike the subsidy policy support from the state in the early stages of the development of wind power and photovoltaics, the state does not seem to intend to provide direct subsidies to the energy storage industry, but instead leaves it to the market to decide.

In the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Development of Energy Storage Technology and Industry", it is proposed that the energy storage industry should reach the initial stage of commercialization in the "13th Five-Year Plan". However, in the next ten years or more, the commercialization of energy storage will become a reality.

In fact, at the current stage, there are already many energy storage projects, but the main business models are concentrated on the power generation side, the user side and the ancillary service market.

On the power generation side, energy storage can be combined with renewable energy to smooth out the volatility of renewable energy. In the future, as the scale of renewable energy continues to expand, it is almost inevitable to face the challenge of power abandonment, so the addition of energy storage is only a matter of time.

In addition, the business model of electric energy storage participating in power auxiliary services is gradually taking shape. Although my country is still in the early stages of the power market and the price mechanism for auxiliary service compensation is still unclear, a well-regulated trading mechanism has basically been formed in terms of auxiliary service providers, provision methods, regulation and evaluation indicators, and settlement methods. Therefore, the power auxiliary service market in some regions has gradually opened up.