On December 3, the Ministry of industry and information technology issued the “14th five year plan” for industrial green development, which emphasizes the implementation of a number of major projects with outstanding carbon reduction effect and strong driving force in major carbon emission industries, green hydrogen energy and renewable energy applications, new energy storage and other fields.
This is only the latest example of energy storage projects being concerned at the policy level. So far, 25 provinces in China have issued documents specifying the allocation of new energy storage, and 10 provinces have published the price documents of energy storage participating in peak shaving services.
The established policy orientation will certainly set off waves in the capital market. Recently, the Guangdong Provincial Development and Reform Commission also approved the pilot scheme, which stipulates the auxiliary service fees for power grid enterprises to purchase electricity, emphasizing the costs including energy storage, pumped storage and so on. On December 8, affected by the significant improvement of energy storage economy by the policy, the A-share energy storage sector strengthened.
In addition, Huawei recently announced that it had successfully signed the energy storage project of red sea new town in Saudi Arabia. The energy storage scale of the project reaches 1300mwh, which is the largest energy storage project in the world so far, and has strategic significance and benchmarking demonstration effect on the development of global energy storage industry.
At the same time, Tesla and other giants have announced large-scale “admission”, which has completely detonated the market’s enthusiasm for the energy storage field.
The data show that in just over half a year, the A-share energy storage sector index has “doubled”, and many leading stocks have repeatedly achieved good results.
In the context of promoting green development, why is energy storage the key to promoting carbon peak and carbon neutralization? What breakthroughs are expected to be made in the technical route of energy storage? Is there an overestimation or misreading behind the current market speculation about the concept of energy storage?
With this series of questions, the reporter of the daily economic news recently made an in-depth analysis of the development trend of the industry, conducted investigations and interviews with a number of experts in the field of energy storage, and tried to deeply interpret one of the hottest keywords in the current market – energy storage.
trillion market opened:
the compound annual growth rate of new energy storage in the next five years is expected to exceed 70%
The so-called “energy storage” is a technology that stores energy for later use when needed. Generally speaking, the current energy storage technology can be divided into two parts: one is physical energy storage, mainly including pumped energy storage, compressed air energy storage and flywheel energy storage; The other plate is electrochemical energy storage, which is commonly known as battery energy storage.
From the current situation, the energy storage stocks in the A-share market basically revolve around the battery end and operation service end. This also means that the concept of “energy storage”, which is concerned in the current capital market, generally refers to electrochemical energy storage.
With China’s proposal to achieve carbon peak in 2030 and carbon neutralization in 2060, the proportion of renewable energy such as wind power and photovoltaic in the overall energy consumption is becoming larger and larger, and the position of energy storage is becoming more and more important.
Relevant data show that wind power, photovoltaic and other renewable energy are distributed generation, and its main feature is “intermittent”. If users need stable power generation, they need the intervention of energy storage facilities to play a regulatory role, so that it can provide a stable power generation functional unit.
Liu Ke, a foreign academician of the Australian National Academy of engineering and President of the school of innovation and Entrepreneurship of Southern University of science and technology, analyzed to the reporter of daily economic news. Taking Cecep Solar Energy Co.Ltd(000591) as an example, the power generation time in one year is only about 20% of that in the whole year, and so is the wind power generation time. In other words, many renewable energy sources are difficult to achieve continuous power generation. Therefore, in order to develop renewable energy, we must solve the problem of energy storage.
The reporter of the daily economic news noted that at present, the market is generally optimistic about the prospect of energy storage development. According to the calculation of Everbright Securities Company Limited(601788) , the energy storage demand space can reach 125 TWH (100 million kwh) in 2030, with a total of 3.9 TWH from 2020 to 2030 The energy storage market space is expected to reach 1.3 trillion yuan in 2030 and 5 trillion yuan in 2060.
At the policy level, several departments have also made clear plans for the scale of China’s energy storage in the future. The guiding opinions of the national development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration on accelerating the development of new energy storage issued in July this year pointed out that by 2025, new energy storage (other energy storage methods except pumped storage) will be transformed from the initial stage of commercialization to large-scale development. The installed capacity is more than 30 million KW.
In this regard, Liu Yong, Secretary General of the energy storage application branch of China National Chemical Engineering Co.Ltd(601117) and physical power industry association, analyzed in an interview with the reporter of daily economic news. According to the data of his front-line research, it is estimated that 400 MW (1 MW = 1000 kW) energy storage projects were put into operation in the first half of this year, but in the second half of this year, There are about 6 ~ 7 GW (gigawatts, gigawatts, 1GW = 1 million KW) energy storage projects planned and under construction in various regions alone, and the scale has increased significantly.
Liu Yong also revealed that from what he learned, the scale of energy storage projects under construction in various regions will rise to 13 ~ 15 GW in 2022, and the scale of energy storage construction will expand steadily. “At present, the energy storage market is trying to develop to the trillion level, which may be developed to this scale in 5 to 10 years (including new pumped storage).”
Yu Zhenhua, executive vice chairman of the energy storage industry technology alliance, said that under a conservative scenario, it is expected that the installed capacity of new energy storage in China will reach 35gw in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 57.4%. With the further promotion of the “double carbon” goal, more places will introduce and implement energy storage application policies. Therefore, under the ideal scenario, the installed scale of new energy storage is expected to reach 55.9gw in 2025, so as to better match the installed target of wind power and photovoltaic in 2025. According to the latter scenario, the compound growth rate of new energy storage from 2021 to 2025 may exceed 70%, showing a rapid growth trend.
In order to form a trillion market in the energy storage sector, in addition to the supporting role of policies, it also needs to form a series of innovative business models.
Liu Yong told reporters that the traditional profit mode of energy storage is mainly peak valley electricity price difference arbitrage. In the future, we should clarify the subject status and market access conditions of energy storage, establish and improve the time-of-use price mechanism, capacity market mechanism and power auxiliary service market mechanism around the value of energy storage technology for the safe and high-quality operation of new power systems. Ensure that all participants in the power market receive fair treatment, and gradually promote the sustainable development of energy storage industry through marketization.
In terms of the innovation of energy storage application mode, the person in charge of an energy storage enterprise told reporters that China is vigorously developing electric vehicles, and the number of electric vehicles is also increasing. If a large number of electric vehicles are charged at the same time, it will cause great problems and have an obvious impact on the power grid. However, if photovoltaic energy storage is added to the energy storage unit of electric vehicles as a power supply, the problem of providing electric vehicle charging power only by the power grid can be solved.
Electric vehicles themselves can also be used as a mobile energy storage source. Assuming that the owner drives an electric vehicle to work, the electric vehicle will naturally Park in the unit for a long time, so that the electric vehicle can also be used as an energy storage energy to accept the dispatching of the power grid.
Another person in the industry told reporters that in the future, building side energy storage is also expected to become a good innovation and commercialization direction of energy storage market. Building side energy storage can not only earn the cost of peak valley arbitrage, but also link with the power grid to participate in demand management and direct power purchase transactions, so as to earn income.
two paths PK:
the kWh cost of pumped storage power station is less than half of electrochemical energy storage
As the development prospect of electrochemical energy storage is generally optimistic, many related stocks in the A-share energy storage sector have performed strongly recently.
However, the reporter of the daily economic news noted that although electrochemical energy storage is a hot spot in the capital market, from the actual operation of energy storage projects, the market shows another landscape.
According to the statistics of Beijing Centergate Technologies (Holding) Co.Ltd(000931) energy storage industry technology alliance, as of the first half of 2020, the cumulative installed capacity of global energy storage projects put into operation was 185.3gw, a year-on-year increase of 1.9%; Among them, the cumulative installed capacity of pumped storage accounts for the largest, accounting for 92.3%; The second is electrochemical energy storage, accounting for 5.5%.
The pumped storage mentioned here is also a typical energy storage technology – it uses the electric energy at the low power load to pump water to the upper reservoir and then discharge water to the lower reservoir for power generation at the peak of power load. Different from electrochemical energy storage, pumped storage, air energy storage, flywheel energy storage and other technologies belong to the category of physical energy storage, and are also a very mature technology. As early as 1882, pumped storage technology was used in Switzerland. Data source: Everbright Securities Company Limited(601788) Research Report
From the above data, the cumulative installed capacity of electrochemical energy storage is only about 1 / 20 of that of pumped storage, which is equivalent to a fraction of the latter, and the scale between the two is seriously disproportionate.
With the continuous promotion and application of electrochemical energy storage technology, the proportion of electrochemical energy storage in the overall energy storage projects has increased in recent years, but it is still limited compared with pumped storage.
According to the data by the end of 2020, the cumulative installed capacity of energy storage projects put into operation in the world is 191.1gw. Among them, the cumulative installed capacity of pumped storage is 172.5gw and electrochemical energy storage is 14.2gw. The proportion of electrochemical energy storage has expanded compared with that before, but the overall proportion still does not exceed 10%.
However, in the capital market, the performance of pumped storage and electrochemical energy storage is significantly differentiated – the data show that the A-share energy storage sector was only 951.81 points in mid May this year, and it has risen to 1873.45 points by November 25 this year, nearly doubling, and there has been no significant fluctuation in the performance of the sector in this half year.
In terms of the pumped storage sector, since September this year, the sector has experienced a roller coaster market, and its overall performance is obviously lower than that of the energy storage sector. At present, its index has only increased by about 18% relative to the lowest point.
How to explain the “upside down” phenomenon between pumped storage and electrochemical energy storage?
In this regard, Liu Yong analyzed that pumped storage power stations are generally large-scale, mature technology and low cost, which can provide strong support for promoting the consumption of renewable energy and improving the stable operation and flexibility of power system. For the power grid, pumped storage power station has the functions of peak load regulation, frequency regulation and voltage regulation, which has greater power and enthusiasm for the development of pumped storage.
Liu Ke told reporters that over the past 100 years since the invention of lead-acid battery, human beings have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on research and development on energy storage, but the energy density of lead-acid battery has increased from 90 kwh / m3 to today’s highest 300 ~ 500 kwh / m3, which has not been revolutionized and fundamentally changed. So far, the cheapest large-scale GW level power storage is the pumped storage technology invented more than 100 years ago.
The reporter of the daily economic news also noted that in the article “analysis of kWh cost and mileage cost of energy storage” published by researchers of Institute of electrical engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences and other institutions in 2019, it is pointed out that the kWh cost of pumped storage power station (the comprehensive cost incurred by the project unit on grid power) is 0.21 ~ 0.25 yuan / kwh; The current kwh cost of electrochemical energy storage is about 0.6 ~ 0.9 yuan / kWh, which is still far from the target cost of scale application of 0.3 ~ 0.4 yuan / kWh.
In terms of the actual use of pumped storage, a relevant person of State Grid Xinyuan company told the daily economic news that during the 13th Five Year Plan period, the company’s pumped storage units were started 115400 times and power generation was started 140600 times, including 3124 emergency starts, providing 115.1 billion kwh of peak and emergency power of the power supply network, Absorb 144 billion kwh of power grid trough and new energy.
Relevant experts pointed out to reporters that in the foreseeable ten years, the application and market scale of pumped storage technology will maintain its advantages over electrochemical energy storage.
Liu Yong analyzed to reporters that the trend of pumped storage as the main part in the energy storage field in the future should continue. With the development of other energy storage technologies such as electrochemistry, the proportion of pumped storage should be gradually reduced, but it should still be maintained at about 70%. In this process, we should also scientifically plan the distribution and storage mode, trading mode and supervision mode of new energy, standardize the construction and development pace of energy storage investment, and avoid the disorderly development of the market caused by too fast and overheated investment.
The reporter of the daily economic news also noted that the medium and long-term development plan for pumped storage (2021-2035) released by the National Energy Administration in September this year clearly stressed that by 2025, the total scale of pumped storage production will double that of the 13th five year plan to more than 62 million KW; By 2030, the total scale of pumped storage will double that of the 14th five year plan, reaching about 120 million KW. From the above data, the production scale of pumped storage is more than twice that of new energy storage in the same period.
However, relevant experts also pointed out to reporters that although pumped storage has many advantages such as mature technology and large project scale, there are also constraints on large-scale promotion. Liu Ke told reporters that pumped storage needs to build a dam, which is limited by the terrain and must be built in an area without water shortage, which hinders the promotion of pumped storage.
project breakthrough blocked:
the global five-year battery capacity is only enough for three days of power failure in Tokyo
At present, there is an obvious imbalance between the proportion of pumped storage put into operation and electrochemical energy storage. On the one hand, pumped storage has the advantages of large project scale, on the other hand, it also shows that there is a real bottleneck in the development of electrochemical energy storage.
Specifically, the first thing to bear the brunt is security. On April 16 this year, a fire and explosion occurred in the energy storage project of a company in Fengtai District, Beijing, resulting in the death of one person, the sacrifice of two firefighters and the injury of one firefighter, with a direct property loss of 16.6081 million yuan. After the accident, the discussion on “whether energy storage is safe” quickly became heated.
Recently, the investigation report of the accident was officially released to the public. The report pointed out that the direct cause of the fire in the South Building of the company was the internal short-circuit fault of lithium iron phosphate battery in the West battery room, which caused the battery to heat out of control and catch fire. The direct cause of the explosion in the north building is the internal short circuit fault of the single lithium iron phosphate battery in the battery room of the south building, which leads to the uncontrolled diffusion and fire of the battery and battery module. The flammable and explosive components produced by the accident enter the energy storage room of the North building through the cable trench and diffuse, mix with the air to form explosive gas, and explode in case of electrical sparks.
According to Liu Ke’s analysis to reporters, many previous views believed that with the development of electric vehicles, the batteries eliminated from a large number of electric vehicles can also be recycled, such as putting them into energy storage power stations to continue to be used, etc. However, from the above cases and a series of accidents, large-scale batteries placed together do have safety problems, which are prone to hidden dangers and even serial explosion accidents.
How to prevent such accidents? Liu Yong told reporters that for energy storage projects, the key is to do a good job in ontology safety and active safety. It is difficult to solve the problem by passive defense alone, which will also bring pressure to fire control. New energy storage is an emerging industry, which is not perfect in technology, standard and application. It should be actively and steadily promoted, and a scientific and standardized management system should be adopted to ensure the safety of new energy storage projects.
The ontology safety mentioned here mainly refers to the safety design inside the battery. At present, there are still hidden dangers of flammability and explosion in battery materials, and targeted breakthroughs need to be made in technology.
In addition, with the growth of operation time of the new energy storage project, the aging of equipment and the attenuation of battery performance will become more and more serious, and the probability of quality problems and safety accidents will increase. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out project operation status monitoring and safety status evaluation to avoid extended service and work with diseases.
During the interview, the person in charge of an energy storage enterprise told the reporter of the daily economic news that to prevent such accidents, from the perspective of the integration of the main circuit, after careful analysis, the enterprise will no longer consider the large-scale integration scheme in practice, that is, the energy storage batteries are connected in series and parallel, but all separated at the physical space level. In this way, Even if a problem occurs in one part of the energy storage plant, it will not spread to other parts.
In addition, electrochemical energy storage lacks “big projects” that can solve the problems of large-scale and large-scale power consumption, which is also a major bottleneck in the development of this field and a key factor for some viewpoints to question the application prospect of electrochemical energy storage.
In an interview with the reporter of the daily economic news, Liu Ke said that at present, “battery energy storage” such as electrochemical energy storage can only solve the small-scale power demand of mobile phones, computers and cars. If they are used to formulate large-scale energy storage schemes, the cost is still too high. Although many enterprises claim to have large-scale energy storage schemes, in real life, even a community that relies entirely on energy storage for power supply has not yet appeared.
For example, it is estimated that the battery capacity of global battery manufacturers for more than five years can only meet the power required for three days of power failure in Tokyo. “It is inconceivable that we have 4 / 5 or 5 / 6 of the time to rely on batteries to store electricity. Moreover, there are not so many cobalt and lithium in the world, so we can’t make so many batteries.”
However, the reporter of the daily economic news also noted that recently, many large energy storage projects around the world have intensively released relevant information, which makes people full of imagination about the prospect of large-scale energy storage in the future.
On October 16, 2021 Global Digital Energy Summit was held in Dubai. At the meeting, Huawei Digital Energy Technology Co., Ltd. and Shandong Electric Power Construction Third Engineering Co., Ltd. successfully signed the energy storage project of Saudi red sea new town. The project is the world’s largest optical off grid energy storage project, and its energy storage system can reach 1300mwh. Huawei said that this large-scale use of “photovoltaic + energy storage” to supply an energy project for a city with a population of one million is the first time in the world.
Tesla, a famous electric vehicle enterprise, has also launched Megapack, a large-scale energy storage system, to lay out the global utility energy storage industry. According to Tesla‘s official website, at present, Tesla has implemented a 1000 megawatt hour project, providing a record energy capacity, which is enough to power every family in San Francisco for six hours.
Does the intensive announcement of large energy storage projects by the above enterprises indicate that the current development of electrochemical energy storage technology has broken through the relevant bottleneck?
In this regard, Liu Yong analyzed to reporters that taking the large-scale energy storage project being promoted by Tesla as an example, the ternary battery technology used in the 40 foot container can achieve 6 megawatt hours. The larger the capacity of the battery, the more land can be saved.
But at the same time, the key of such large projects lies in the system integration capability: one is the integration of energy storage containers, and the other is the integration of power station operation. It is estimated that hundreds or even thousands of large containers are needed to realize such a large-scale energy storage project. Therefore, it is very important to operate and maintain so many energy storage containers at the same time.
Liu Yong believes that from the current situation, the GW level large-scale energy storage projects announced by various enterprises have not yet formed a fully mature example in the whole life cycle. Whether future large-scale energy storage projects can maintain safe operation in the whole life cycle requires research on source network load storage coordination planning technology, modeling and simulation technology of joint operation of large-capacity energy storage and new energy, large-scale energy storage equipment, software and data integration technology, safety and operation and maintenance, multi-type energy storage matching mode and regulation mode.
On the basis of the project put into operation, electrochemical energy storage technology should further optimize the technical evaluation capacity construction in battery structure design, power station operation detection and management, risk diagnosis, safety protection, emergency treatment, communication architecture, control mode, output strategy, hybrid energy storage, etc.
In addition, the current high cost of power storage is also a major pain point perplexing the development of the industry. Liu Ke analyzed the daily economic news reporter based on the data. At present, the cost of Cecep Solar Energy Co.Ltd(000591) power generation can be as low as more than ten cents, but in the Pearl River Delta, the peak valley price difference of industrial and commercial power can reach up to 1.3 yuan – 1.7 yuan.
Generally speaking, the peak valley electricity price difference can represent the cost of energy storage. From the comparison of power generation cost and peak valley electricity price difference, the current cost of energy storage is much higher than that of new energy power generation. If the energy storage cost is too high, there will be obvious constraints on the consumption of new energy.
Liu Ke explained to reporters that the important role of energy storage is reflected in “cutting peak and filling valley”. If energy storage develops well, it can effectively reduce the price difference between peak and valley electricity prices. However, from the current situation, the peak valley electricity price difference in many parts of China is still very large. Even if there is arbitrage space, relevant enterprises have no obvious action. This shows that this problem has not been well solved.
competition track open:
various technical paths will show the eight immortals across the sea
From a deeper level, the heat of the energy storage market and the various disputes surrounding the energy storage technology, in the final analysis, focus on how to absorb renewable energy and build a new power system with new energy as the main body under the background of building a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy system.
Needless to say, the current electrochemical energy storage technology has not developed to the stage of being able to play its own role. So, under the current technical ability, how can we use multiple routes and do our best to achieve new energy consumption?
In this regard, Liu Ke analyzed to the reporter of the daily economic news that renewable energy such as wind energy, light energy and hydropower are greatly affected by the weather, and often “rely on heaven to eat”. In this context, in order to absorb new energy, we need to do a good job in the base load of the power grid, and to bear the base load, at present, the more reasonable choice is nuclear power and thermal power, which is the main force to maintain the stability of the overall power grid.
Of course, at present, many people have proposed “complementary scenery” and smart grid, which is also a path for the consumption of renewable energy, but in the final analysis, we should give full play to the role of base load.
Liu Ke believes that although everyone has a better vision for renewable energy, from the perspective of reality, the effect of investing in thermal power transformation or nuclear power safety transformation is much better than that of energy technologies with uncertain development prospects.
Liu Yong told reporters that from the current technical route, the consumption of renewable energy mainly depends on three aspects: flexible transformation of thermal power, pumped storage and electrochemical energy storage.
The reporter of the daily economic news also noted that in addition to pumped storage and electrochemical energy storage, which have been used for a long time, a series of new energy storage technologies have also begun to emerge in recent years, providing a variety of possibilities for new energy consumption.
For example, in recent years, the use of hydrogen energy storage has become a hot spot in the energy field. Hydrogen energy has high energy density and low operation and maintenance cost. It can be applied to the energy reserve of power supply for very short or very long time at the same time. It is a rare form of energy storage that can store more than hundreds of kilowatt hours.
Sun Shigang, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told reporters earlier that renewable energy power generation is not so easy to access the Internet. We need supporting energy storage facilities to use energy. In this process, the best way is through hydrogen energy; If the hydropower resources in Western China can not be used up, it can also be turned into hydrogen energy to generate hydrogen by electrolyzing water.
Liu Ke analyzed to reporters that from the perspective of China’s natural endowment, it can combine wind energy, Cecep Solar Energy Co.Ltd(000591) and coal to produce relatively cheap methanol. Hydrogen can be produced by on-board methanol and integrated with fuel cell system, which is more efficient than direct combustion engine. This route is possible in the future.
At present, the application of hydrogen energy storage in China is advancing steadily. In March this year, China National Chemical Engineering Co.Ltd(601117) Engineering Group Co., Ltd. announced that Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group Co.Ltd(600989) Cecep Solar Energy Co.Ltd(000591) electrolytic hydrogen storage research and demonstration project 10 undertaken by China National Chemical Engineering Co.Ltd(601117) engineering No. 11 company × The 1000nm3 / h electrolytic water hydrogen production project was successfully commissioned and put into operation at one time.
The project is the first hydrogen energy industry project in Ningxia and the largest integrated renewable energy hydrogen production and storage project in China. It adopts the most advanced domestic high-efficiency alkaline electrolytic cell with a single capacity of 1000 standard m3 / h. After being put into operation, the annual output of hydrogen is expected to be 160 million standard cubic meters and the by-product oxygen is expected to be 80 million standard cubic meters. It can reduce coal consumption by 254000 tons and carbon dioxide emission by 445000 tons every year.
In addition, the application of compressed air energy storage is also a hot spot in the field of new energy storage technology. On September 30 this year, the grid connection test of Jiangsu Jintan Yanxue compressed air energy storage national test and demonstration project was successful, and the first degree of power of China’s first large compressed air energy storage power station was sent to the State Grid, marking significant progress in the R & D and application of China’s new energy storage technology.
According to China Salt Group, salt cavern compressed air energy storage is a high-capacity physical energy storage technology using underground salt cavern gas storage. It compresses the air into the salt cavern by using the low valley electric energy, and releases the compressed air for power generation at the peak of power consumption, so as to reduce the peak and fill the valley of the power grid, and improve the regulation capacity and new energy consumption capacity of the power grid. It has the advantages of large capacity, long service life, safety and environmental protection.
Liu Ke also stressed to reporters that it can be expected that in the future, the energy storage field will show the trend of “Eight Immortals crossing the sea and showing their abilities”.
reporter’s notes </stron
