In recent years, China's energy storage industry has developed rapidly, but the development of energy storage power plants has lagged behind. Among the many factors that constrain the development of storage plants, the cost factor is one of the most important factors. To reduce costs and promote the long-term and healthy development of energy storage power plants, technological progress is the most crucial driving force.
Lin Boqiang: Technological progress is the key to energy-saving power plant
Recently, the battery is a hot topic. In addition to the development of electric vehicles, energy storage plants are also an important aspect of battery utilization.
The development of China's storage and power stations is relatively slow, but the R & D investment in large-scale energy storage technologies is relatively large and the R & D progress is relatively fast. At present, BYD, Clou Electronics and many other listed companies have entered the storage power station market.
Most of China's previous energy storage plants were pumped storage power plants, mainly for peak regulation or cooperation with nuclear power plants. It should be said that with the decline in battery costs in recent years, the installed capacity of electrochemical energy storage showed a rapid growth trend. However, due to the restriction of market mechanism, system restriction and experience, the development of China's storage power station still lags behind.
According to the DOE's statistics on projects of storage power plants in various countries around the world, China's new installed capacity in 2016 is less than 0.1 GW, about one-tenth of that in the United States. The installed capacity is even smaller than in Germany and Italy. After many years of technological progress, large-scale energy storage and power plants have started to cross the breakeven point and have already made profits in some areas. In the future, with the continuous improvement of technology, the expansion of production capacity and the improvement of market mechanism, large-scale energy storage may enter the golden age of development.
In addition to the need for technological progress, it is also important to participate in the investment and financing model for the construction of storage power stations and research and development. In addition to the demonstration projects, most of the stored energy stations currently under commercial operation are self-funded by enterprises. According to the current electricity price policy, there is more power to invest in energy storage, such as hotels, shopping malls and other demand-side and large peak-valley difference in commercial enterprises. Therefore, the specific mode of investment and financing depends on the financing mode of these enterprises themselves. However, it is generally based on the indirect financing of bank loans or the investment of self-owned enterprises. In the future, with the increase of policy support, we do not rule out a richer model of investment and financing, such as integrating social capital into the energy storage sector through PPP and other modes.
The economy of energy storage power station operation depends on the cost reduction and quality improvement brought by technological progress, but also requires a relatively good business model. Under the existing electricity market mechanism, the economy of energy storage and power station operation is mainly embodied in demand-side electricity price arbitrage. For example, in some areas the difference between the peak and valley prices reached 1 yuan / kWh or more, the application of energy storage began to have the economy. If the future energy storage costs can be further reduced, it can also be used as a supplement to renewable energy power plants to help increase the consumption of renewable energy. In addition, energy storage plants abroad often can also be used to provide peak shaving, FM and power storage services. Therefore, with the promotion of China's power system reform in the future, there will be plenty of room for application in this area.
So what technologies are currently mainly used in China's large-scale storage power plants under construction and how much is their construction cost? At present, China's storage power station under construction is mainly based on lithium-ion batteries, there are a small amount of vanadium flow battery. Most of the data on construction costs are not disclosed at this time. Of course, if the simple calculation, you can refer to Tesla Powerpack price of 250 US dollars / kWh, coupled with inverter and other equipment investment. Due to the relatively low degree of industrialization in China, coupled with the strong demand for automotive batteries, resulting in relatively insufficient supply of batteries, so the cost of installation will be higher than Tesla's price.
Constraints on the development of energy storage power station there are many main factors that are mainly reflected in several aspects: The first is the cost factor. Currently, energy storage plants can only be economically operated in some areas. The future want to get large-scale applications, but also to be further reduced the cost of technology advances and quality to be further improved, and the implementation of government subsidies. Followed by the improvement of the electricity market system, including the electricity price mechanism and market access mechanism. For example, the need to allow non-government investment in the storage power plant to participate in the peak frequency regulation of power grid services, but also should be stored energy storage plant as a power grid, which needs to be considered in the process of power system reform. Once again, there is a need to have successful case studies. Storage and storage power stations are relatively new investments. A batch of demonstration projects are needed to let everyone see the feasibility of operation.
Currently, the energy storage industry requires the state to subsidize energy storage plants. Whether subsidies should be paid for a new and important energy technology should mainly be based on two considerations: First, whether the investment in the project possesses positive externality (including the positive externality of resources and the environment); second, whether such products are Is a strategic new industry. Storage plants have the positive externalities of helping to save renewable energy and stabilize the energy grid environment. From this point of view, subsidies should be provided. However, it is important to find effective subsidies in the industrial chain. The author thinks the important subsidy point should be research and development. For storage power plants, the effectiveness of subsidies and possible "fraud" problems should be carefully considered. In addition, it should be noted that, in this part of the externalities, renewable energy enterprises and power grids are the beneficiaries, so a reasonable subsidy sharing mechanism should be devised which can not be completely borne by the government.
On the whole, energy storage is a key part of clean development in the long run, and subsidies are needed for this critical sector in its early stages of development in order to establish a large enough market for enterprises to invest in R & D and investment. To implement the specific subsidy policy, you can refer to the distributed photovoltaic subsidy model, take the form of electricity subsidies. At the same time can be adjusted in terms of tariffs, cross subsidies through differential electricity prices.
Of course, subsidies and other modes of installation can also be used to promote the application of energy storage and power stations. However, the design of installed subsidies needs to be cautious and the motivation and possibility of "fraud cheating" should be reduced as much as possible. For example, the U.S. government subsidizes $ 7,500 per Tesla, but with a limit of 200,000 for each brand and a cumulative sales of more than 200,000 subsidies. Tesla has already used 100,000 units, and it is generally estimated that next year No longer enjoy the subsidy. Such a mode of subsidy should be able to reduce the incentive to cheat and compensate.
Due to the importance of energy storage technologies for changing human energy systems and clean development, China can not lag behind in energy storage development and should narrow its technological gap with the world through policy support as soon as possible. In general, the basic principles of subsidies and support should be: Subsidy policies should consider the effectiveness of subsidies, subsidies in a reasonable manner and intensity, to avoid the waste of social resources and industry disorderly development. Energy storage subsidies should be able to reflect its externalities. Therefore, it is necessary to formulate a subsidy policy in light of the actual situation in different places to avoid one-size-fits-all. Different endowments of energy resources around the different load characteristics of electricity demand is also different, not the same as the energy storage, using a one-size-fits-all subsidies easily lead to distortion of resource allocation. Therefore, it is necessary to separately calculate and calculate the externality magnitude of peak regulation and auxiliary services that energy storage can bring to the local power grids according to the electricity market situation in each province, and then make up the differential subsidy amount.