Megabatteries like the ones at Jurong – and more, even bigger ones – are now popping up elsewhere in the world at breakneck speed, and investment is pouring in. In the last couple of years, a new industry with grid-sized batteries, i.e. large enough to support the electricity system itself and not just store energy for a single house or a single car, has started to grow as a spin-off from the battery industry for electric cars. And now things are starting to go really fast for the big battery parks, both in the USA, China and Europe. “There is strong growth in battery capacity, and there is a huge pipeline of battery parks, which are on the way,” says Max Schoenfisch, who is an energy and battery expert at the International Energy Agency, IEA, in Paris. Between 2019 and 2021 alone, the growth in capacity more than tripled, the figures from the IEA show. And the growth just keeps growing. It helps to solve one of the biggest challenges for the green transformation of our energy system. Glue in the energy system The world’s energy is getting greener and greener. But renewable energy is by nature fluctuating, and that leads to a simple but central question: What do we do when the wind doesn’t blow or when the sun goes down? It is something that researchers and energy planners are working hard to solve. And the research is very clear. Hundreds of studies gradually show that it is possible to create an energy system of 100 percent renewable energy at a low price. Even if energy production fluctuates, as the wind blows, and without the need for fossil back-up. Put very simply, the researchers outline the overall energy system as a system, which is connected much more together to meet the challenge of green, fluctuating energy. Firstly, as much as possible must be made electric – think petrol cars for electric cars or gas boilers for heat pumps. In addition, we shall use much less energy, and we shall use it more wisely, e.g. charging all the electric cars, when more electricity is produced than we normally use. In addition, the system must be tied together much more. Both completely classic with wires and cables, as we already do a bit here at home, where, for example, Denmark can send extra power from the offshore wind turbines down to Germany, when it’s very windy, or get power from Norwegian hydropower, when the wind dies down. But there is also something else, which must be more connected: Power and heating systems must be linked together, and we must harvest excess heat from, for example, factories and data centers, so that it can be turned into heat in the radiator at home. And then we should be able to save the energy for later. This can be done in different ways. You can convert excess electricity into chemical fuels, what is called Power-to-X, which is to be used in e.g. container ships or aircraft. You can build some large “water batteries”, where you use surplus power to pump water up from a low-lying lake or dam to a high-lying lake, and when you lack power, you can send the water down to the low lake again through a turbine. It is actually the largest battery type in the world, but it is difficult to expand (it requires, for example, that you have a mountain with two lakes at different heights). And then you can build some large versions of the batteries we know from mobile phones or electric cars, which can store the energy. They should not be able to cover the entire energy consumption, when there is not enough electricity, far from it, only a fraction in fact, but they are part of the glue that will bind the flexible, green energy system together. “We expect that batteries will play an important role in the future energy system,” says Max Schoenfisch from the IEA. Flexible, easy and fast It is precisely the enormous growth in green energy over the past decade, in particular, that is the biggest reason why giant batteries are growing explosively now, says Max Schoenfisch. “The primary reason for the development is that there is a need for much more flexibility in the electricity system, and the batteries support the renewable energy sources,” he explains. “And batteries are flexible, they are easy to expand as needed, and they are quick to set up”. For example, the Singaporean battery park at Jurong was built in just half a year. At the same time, the price of batteries has fallen wildly. The lithium batteries are of the same type as those found in electric cars, and the great development and growth in electric cars has caused the price to drop, explains Max Schoenfisch. The price of lithium batteries has fallen by 85 percent in just 10 years. This helps make large batteries a good investment. “We don’t have the exact figures for 2022 yet,” he says, “but we reckon that the investments were probably roughly doubled compared to the previous year”. A huge task There is also need. Although the global growth in large batteries is tremendous right now, it is still from a relatively low starting point, and they are set to multiply in this decade alone. At the end of 2021, where the latest aggregate figures are from, the total capacity was 16 GW of grid-sized batteries worldwide. But the IEA estimates that we need 680 GW in 2030, if we are to be on the right track towards climate neutrality in 2050. That is a 44-fold increase between 2021 and 2030. And afterwards, in the years leading up to 2050, many more will be needed several. It will be a huge task. But first of all, it goes faster and faster. For example, the US authority for energy information, EIA, has just published their expectations for how much new battery capacity will be built and connected to the electricity grid in the US this year: 9.4 GW. That is more than the Americans have built in the previous eight years combined – in a single year. In addition to a greater need for batteries and the falling price, the large growth is due to President Biden’s climate law from last year, which now gives a tax discount to the sector. Secondly, many of the building blocks to reach the 2030 target of 680 GW are being laid, explains Max Schoenfisch. In addition to the fact that new battery parks are constantly being announced, there are also more and more manufacturers planning new factories to build the many batteries. “Production capacity has already been announced to get us 80 percent of the way to the 2030 target. It is very positive,” says Max Schoenfisch. “Although there is still 20 percent, there is a shortage”. So it is of course not a matter of course that enough batteries will be built to achieve the climate neutrality goals. It requires more politics, which pushes on, emphasizes the IEA. But both the US, China and Europe, the three largest markets, have big goals for the next couple of years, and experts predict strong growth. They also expect other countries such as India to start building batteries for the electricity grid before long, says Max Schoenfisch.
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Now there will be a lot of giant batteries. They become part of the glue in the green transition
