Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Distributed generation: Residential storage comes at a cost

Nature Energy volume 2, Article number: 17006 (2017) Cite this article

Subjects

The combined effect of increased variability of demand due to distributed generation and domestic storage deployment represents a new feature in modern electricity systems. A recent study shows that while storage can reduce peak demand, it could also increase overall consumption and electricity system emissions.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Electricity consumption (black line) and net electricity demand (blue line) for a solar home over one week, where installed solar capacity produces as much energy as the house consumes, averaged over the year.

References

  1. Annual Energy Outlook 2014 (EIA, 2014).

  2. SunShot Vision Study (US Department of Energy, 2012).

  3. Campbell, R. & Parfomak, P. Tesla's Home Battery — An Electricity Storage Breakthrough? (US Congressional Research Service, 2015); http://go.nature.com/2iFmTLi

    Google Scholar 

  4. Fares, R. L. & Webber, M. E. Nat. Energy 2, 17001 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Siler-Evans, K., Azevedo, I. & Morgan, M. G. Environ. Sci. Tech. 46, 4742–4748 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Hittinger, E. S. & Azevedo, I. M. Environ. Sci. Tech. 5, 3203–3210 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Lin, Y., Johnson, J. & Mathieu, J. Applied Energy 168, 444–456 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Fisher, M. & Apt, J. Environ. Sci. Tech. http://doi.org/bxhc (2016).

  9. Commercial and Residential Hourly Load Profiles for All TMY3 Locations in the United States. (US Department of Energy, accessed September 2015); http://go.nature.com/2jCPEHG

  10. National Solar Radiation Data Base (National Renewable Energy Laboratory, accessed September 2015); http://go.nature.com/2k74Iyn

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Eric Hittinger is at the Department of Public Policy, Rochester Institute of Technology, 92 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, New York 14623, USA,

    Eric Hittinger

Authors
  1. Eric Hittinger
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eric Hittinger.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hittinger, E. Distributed generation: Residential storage comes at a cost. Nat Energy 2, 17006 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2017.6

Download citation

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2017.6

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing