Utilities are starting to invest in big batteries instead of building new power plants

由于其成本下降，lithium-ion batteries主导一系列应用程序，包括电动车辆，计算机和消费电子产品。

You might think about energy storage only when your laptop or cellphone are running out of juice, but utilities can plug bigger versions into the electric grid. And thanks to rapidly declininglithium-ion battery prices, usingenergy storageto stretch electricity generation capacity.

基于our research上储能成本和性能在北卡罗来纳州，和our analysis在未来几年内可能发挥潜在的作用，我们相信公用事业应该为廉价网格级电池的出现做好准备，并开发灵活，长期计划，拯救消费者的钱。

2019年在美国在线上网的所有新的公用事业级电容能量将通过天然气，风和太阳能作为煤炭，核和一些天然气植物来源。美国能源信息管理

Peak demand is pricey

The amount of electricity consumers use varies according to the time of day and between weekdays and weekends, as well as seasonally and annually as everyone goes about their business.

Those variations can be huge.

For example, the times when consumers use the most electricity in many regions isnearly double the averageamount of power they typically consume. Utilities often meet peak demand by building power plants that run on natural gas, due to theirlower construction costs当需要时运行的能力。

However, it’s expensive and inefficient to build these power plants just to meet demand in those peak hours. It’s like purchasing a large van that you will only use for the three days a year when your brother and his three kids visit.

电网需要在需要时提供电源，并且在整天内使用使用情况大大变化。什么时候grid-connected batteries帮助提供足够的电力以满足需求，但公用事业公司不必建立尽可能多的电厂和传输线路。

Given how long this infrastructure lasts and how rapidly battery costs are dropping, utilities face new long-term planning challenges.

Grid-scale batteries are being installed coast-to-coast as this snapshot from 2017 indicates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. Battery Storage Market Trends, 2018.

更便宜的电池

大约一半of the new generation capacity built in the U.S. annually since 2014 has come from solar, wind or other可再生资源. Natural gas plants make up much of the rest but in the future, that industry may need to compete with energy storage formarket share.

In practice, we can see how the pace of天然气燃气power plant construction might slow downin responseto this new alternative.

到目前为止，公用事业公司只安装了相当于一个或两个传统发电厂在网格级锂离子电池项目中，自2015年以来一直。但是California, Texas, the Midwest and New England当消费者需要比平常的功率更大时，这些设备通过改善操作和桥接间隙而受益于整体网格。

基于我们自己的经验跟踪锂离子电池成本，我们看到这些电池的潜力将以更大的规模部署并扰乱能源业务。

什么时候we were given about one year to conduct a study on thebenefits and costs of energy storage in North Carolina，跟上技术进步的步伐，越来越多的负担性是一场斗争。

Projected battery costs changed so significantly from the beginning to the end of our project that we found ourselves rushing at the end to update our analysis.

Once utilities easily can take advantage of these huge batteries, they will not need as much new power-generation capacity to meet peak demand.

公用事业规划

即使在电池可用于大型储能之前，仍然很难为未来期望的期望的不确定性而制定长期计划。

例如，大多数能源专家都没有预料到戏剧性下降natural gas pricesdue to the spread of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, starting about a decade ago — or the incentive that it would provide utilities tophase out coal-fired power plants.

近年来,solar energy和wind powercosts have dropped far faster than expected, also displacing coal — and in some cases natural gas — as a source ofenergy for electricity generation.

我们在存储研究中学到的东西是说明性的。

We found that lithium ion batteries at 2019 prices were a bit too expensive in North Carolina to compete with natural gaspeaker plants— the natural gas plants used occasionally when electricity demand spikes. However, when we modeled projected 2030 battery prices, energy storage proved to be the morecost-effective option.

联邦州甚至一些当地人policies are another wild card. For example, Democratic lawmakers have outlined theGreen New Deal,一个野心us plan that rapidly could address climate change and income inequality at the same time.

And no matter what happens in Congress, the越来越频繁bouts ofextreme weatherhitting the United States are also expensive for utilities.Droughts reduce hydropower产出和散热器使电用法尖峰.

The Scattergood power plant in Los Angeles is one of three natural gas power plants slated to shut down by 2029.AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

The future

几个公用事业公司已经投资能量存储。

加利福尼亚效用太平洋燃气和电气, for example, got permission from regulators to build a massive 567.5 megawatt energy-storage battery system near San Francisco, although the效用的破产could complicate the project.

Hawaiian Electric Companyis seeking approval对于将在岛上建立数百兆瓦的能量存储的项目。Arizona Public Service和波多黎各电力管理局正在研究存储选项。

We believe these and other decisions will reverberate for decades to come. If utilities miscalculate and spend billions on power plants they won’t need instead of investing in energy storage, their customers could pay more than they should to keep the lights through the middle of this century.