Main content:
New energy supporting energy storage, low utilization rate, insufficient economy, but high investment enthusiasm. Shared energy storage and new power systems play a prominent role in capacity management and auxiliary services, but there is little enthusiasm for investment.
As new power systems continue to evolve, new energy storage must find a suitable way forward. Shared energy of storing, as an independent market entity, must also have sufficient market size to develop healthily.
1. Planned use of new energy supporting technologies
The utilization factor of new energy distribution and storage is only 6.1%, which is far lower than 15.3% of thermal power plant distribution and 14.8% of grid distribution. In other words, new energy sources supporting energy storage have not yet been fully developed. At present, the feasibility of supporting energy storage is not in its own utilization efficiency, but mainly depends on the assistance of new energy as part of new energy to achieve feasibility.
Especially with the improvement of efficiency and cost reduction of new technologies, the interaction between the two has led to fierce market competition. In fact, the original grid plan did not take account of market expansion, and many preconditions were required to meet it. For example, lithium batteries, photovoltaic and wind power technologies continue to improve and reduce costs.
In recent years, with the construction of UHV and the flexible transformation of thermal power, the phenomenon of abandoning wind and light has been continuously improved. The utilization rate of wind power and distributed pv system in China has increased year by year, from 82.4% and 90% in 2016 to 96.8% and 98.3% in 2022, respectively.
This also reflects the low utilization factor of supporting energy storage, and the role of supporting energy storage in promoting the absorption of new energy is worth further exploration. Today, in addition to meeting local needs, the practical value of strong technology is not obvious. The need to spend so much money on such arrangements is questionable, and calls for a halt are being made.
2. Shared energy storage in the market
The utilization rate of high-allocation energy storage is low, and shared energy storage seems to be a better solution. Forced allocation of storing energy is more like a local planned economy, while shared energy storage is an attempt to promote market behavior. If there is economic waste in the allocation of storing energy, then it seems to be more necessary.
It can be used not only for capacity management, but also for auxiliary services, and can participate in spot trading in the electricity market, and the benefits are even greater. At present, there is uncertainty in the three economic sources of shared energy storage.
● Capacity leasing
Relying on the surrounding photovoltaic and wind power resources and planning layout.
● Ancillary services
It depends on the response needs of the grid and the grid structure.
● Peak-to-valley spread arbitrage
Depends on local electricity demand and the electricity spot market.
The uncertainty of these three sources of income hinders market-oriented investment enthusiasm. In particular, the spot market is not perfect, and regional differences are also prominent, which also makes the peak-valley spread arbitrage income that should be determined the most uncertain.
In the face of market demand, shared energy for storing faces uncertain demand, greater risk, difficulty in building yield models, more difficult investment decisions, and higher requirements for professionalism. At the same time, it is professional operation behavior with a high barrier to entry. It is not very friendly for top 10 energy storage lithium battery companies that want to set up energy storage batteries.
3. Independent market entity sharing
Compared to pumped storage, what is the biggest difference between new shared energy storage based on electrochemical energy storage? In addition to the functional differences, the cost of pumped storage goes into the transmission and distribution price, the benefits are guaranteed, and it is essentially part of the grid system.
The new type of shared energy storage does not enter the transmission and distribution price, and the investment and operation are completely handed over to the market. For the new type of shared energy for storing, the benefits depend on themselves.
In the context of market-oriented operations, its large initial investment places higher demands on the certainty of future earnings. Without sufficient predictability, it is difficult to be economical. From a functional point of view, shared energy storage should become part of the grid like pumped storage, but it is not actually included in the grid system, but is pushed to the market, requiring self-reliance.
In the early days of the development of new power systems, everyone was groping. Shared energy storage is positioned as an independent market entity, and the characteristics of insufficient marketization are undoubtedly revealed, and it is not easy to promote.
4. What is the value of the new technology
The demand for new energy storage is linked to the emergence of new power systems. The foundation of the new power system is that the proportion of new energy on the source side continues to increase, which has an impact on the entire power system. When the output rate of new energy is not high, traditional regulation resources, UHV and other voltages at all levels can be absorbed.
Once a certain output rate is exceeded, there will be a bottleneck in the existing regulatory resources. At present, the proportion of wind power and photovoltaic power generation in 2022 has reached 11%, according to relevant theoretical predictions. When wind power and photovoltaic power generation account for more than 15%, the impact on the power grid will cross the threshold and accelerate.
Therefore, prepare in advance for the possible impact on the power grid from the increase in the proportion of new energy. Includes UHV, pumped storage, battery energy storage and other coping options. In the process of continuous evolution of new power systems, the core value of new energy storing is mainly two:
● Passive capacity value and peak regulation auxiliary service value.
This is because the proportion of new energy is increasing, and the disturbance to the power grid is increasing.
● The spot trading value of active peak-to-valley spreads.
This is because the cost of new energy and energy storage is constantly decreasing. The increasing number of market-oriented entities on the power and home energy storage, as well as the maturity of the spot electricity market, have promoted the emergence of the peak-valley electricity price differential market. These two values are related to the construction of new power systems.
5. Conclusion
To this end, with the construction of new power systems, the requirements for new energy storage are realistic and urgently needed. However, especially shared energy storage, must find value on both sides. In other words, it is necessary to create value for these two aspects, so that the certainty of returns is more predictable, so as to promote the investment enthusiasm of independent market players.
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