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ENERGY STORAGE

Beyond short-duration energy storage

Nature Energy volume 6, pages 460–461 (2021)Cite this article

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Long-duration energy storage technologies can be a solution to the intermittency problem of wind and solar power but estimating technology costs remains a challenge. New research identifies cost targets for long-duration storage technologies to make them competitive against different firm low-carbon generation technologies.

Storage technologies can provide energy shifting across long-duration and seasonal timescales, allowing for consumption of energy long after it is generated, and addressing the intermittency problem of variable renewable energy sources. Even though long-duration storage could play a critical role in enabling carbon-free or high renewable power systems, the economics of long-duration storage technologies are not well understood. Now, writing in Nature Energy, Nestor A. Sepulveda and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton University use a detailed power capacity expansion optimization model to estimate the cost targets for long-duration storage at which it becomes cost-competitive with other firm low-carbon generation technologies, such as nuclear power, natural gas power plants with carbon capture and sequestration, and the combustion of blue hydrogen (hydrogen derived from natural gas reforming with carbon capture and sequestration)1. Based on future cost and performance projections for long-duration storage technologies, Sepulveda and colleagues conclude that the displacement of nuclear power could potentially be achieved under certain conditions, whereas further research and development toward the reduction of long-duration storage technology costs are needed to displace natural gas power plants with carbon capture and sequestration or the combustion of blue hydrogen. Moreover, the researchers conclude that energy storage capacity cost and discharge efficiency are the most critical drivers for the cost-effectiveness of long-duration storage technologies — for example, energy capacity cost becomes the largest cost driver as discharge duration increases.

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Fig. 1: Multi-scale energy storage needs for a hypothetical 95% carbon-free power system.

References

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  1. Power System Design & Planning (PSDP) group, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO, USA

    Omar J. Guerra

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  1. Omar J. Guerra
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Correspondence to Omar J. Guerra.

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Guerra, O.J. Beyond short-duration energy storage. Nat Energy 6, 460–461 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-021-00837-2

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