1

By Doug Peeples

SGN News Editor

You can't swing a dead battery without hitting a news story about the latest advances in EV or grid-related energy storage. And while venture capital investment in clean tech generally slowed down in 2012, it certainly hasn't stopped – and that means R&D hasn't either.

For smart grid companies and other true believers, efficient and cost-effective energy storage is critical if EVs are to eventually get more than a toehold in the car market. And it's no secret that the secret sauce for successfully and efficiently taking advantage of renewables like wind and solar is grid-scale storage.

In that light, we wanted to look at some of the storage-related predictions that have been circulating and how storage technologies are developing and being used. If we don't mention your favorite storage technology, it's only because there's too much going on to include it all.

Those pesky predictions

"Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true." — Danish physicist Niels Bohr

Some observers have said EVs made their debut prematurely, and that manufacturers should have waited until they had a relatively cheap battery that could compete with gasoline engines for range. And there are some pretty bold predictions out there that the world will be powered by 100% renewables in from a few years to a few decades.

While you may have to still believe in the Tooth Fairy to swallow this one, a Stanford research team determined that the 100% renewables era could come in 20 to 40 years – with existing technology, and it would cost no more than we're paying now.

The International Energy Agency has offered what many will think is a more solid proposition: Renewables will grow from 8% of total energy in 2009 to 13% in 2035. But in the same Fast Company article, Reuters expects natural gas to cut the economic legs off renewables in the next few years.

Regardless of who's right, the fact is wind and solar are growing globally. A recent Time Magazine article said that despite economic uncertainty in the U.S. and elsewhere and an oversupply of solar the two industries will continue to grow.

But what's that got to do with storage?

Everything, of course. As we said earlier, integration of renewables depends on energy storage with the capabilities to smooth out the inconsistent power delivery of wind and solar, and utilities are gradually taking advantage of it. Duke Energy just recently flipped the switch on a 36 MW energy storage and power management system at its Notrees Windpower farm in Texas. Duke says continued progress could lead to more renewable energy.

And SGN reported some good news for the industry last week. The California Public Utilities Commission added what could be some more market muscle for energy storage when it ordered Southern California Edison to procure 50 MW of energy storage and an additional 600 MW from "preferred sources," including storage by 2021 at the latest.