vgbe energy journal 10 (2022) - International Journal for Generation and Storage of Electricity and Heat

New storage technologies
in the energy market
Jan Weustink, Thorben Fohrmann, Sven Johannssen and Dagmar Thien
Abstract
Neue Speichertechnologien im
Energiemarkt
Der heilige Gral der Energiewende ist nicht
einzig der Ausbau der Solar- und der Windkraftanlagen,
sondern die Verfügbarkeit und
die Koordinierung von Energiespeichern.
Hierdurch wird der Überschuss an regenerativer
Energie an sonnigen und windigen Zeiten
gespeichert, mit dem Ziel diese abzugeben,
wenn sie wieder benötigt wird.
Die größere Herausforderung hierbei ist nicht
nur das Speichern der Energie für einen Tag
(Daily Storage), sondern für ganze Wochen,
bzw. Monate (Seasonal Storage).
Elektro-chemische Energiespeicher wie Batterien
sind teuer in der Produktion und begrenzt
in der Kapazität, wobei wir bereits einen großen
Preisverfall in der letzten Dekade ins-
Authors
Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Jan Weustink
Senior Key Expert for Plant
Simulation
Thorben Fohrmann
Strategic Analyst for Energy
Storage
Dipl.-Ing. Sven Johannssen
Sustainability Consultant &
Project Manager
Dr. rer. nat. Dagmar Thien
Senior Sales Manager for Design
of Energy Systems
Siemens Energy
Karlsruhe, Germany
besondere bei Li-Ion-Batterien beobachten
konnten.
Stattdessen zeigen sich neue Ideen auf dem
Markt, um die Herausforderungen der Energiespeicherung
zu lösen. Darunter sind auch
thermische Speicher, um bei Bedarf Wärmeenergie
über Wärmetauscher in Wasserdampf
umzuwandeln und damit konventionelle Turbinen
anzutreiben und/oder die Wärme für
industrielle Prozesse oder Fernwärmelösungen
bereitzustellen. Diese Speicher lassen sich
auf unterschiedlichste Weisen mit bestehenden
Kraftwerken kombinieren. Ein wichtiges Ziel
für Stromnetze mit hohem Anteil an erneuerbaren
Energien und integrierten Speichern ist
darüber hinaus eine verbrauchsgesteuerte Primär-
und Sekundärfrequenzregelung.
Auch die Sektorenkopplung, sowie Power to X
eröffnen viele weitere Möglichkeiten über die
reine Energiespeicherung hinaus, wie im folgenden
Artikel erläutert wird.
l
The holy grail of energy transformation is not
solely the extension of solar and wind parks. It
is also about the availability of energy when
needed. Therefore, energy storage solutions
are necessary to store the excessive renewable
energy on sunny and windy days to feed this
back into the grid when needed. The major
challenge here is not to store the energy for a
day but rather for weeks or even months as
seasonal storages: Electro-Chemical energy
storage like batteries is expensive in pro-duction
and limited in capacity, even if we already
see a huge decline in costs over the past decade
especially at Li-Ion batteries.
Instead, other technologies are evolving to
counter the challenges of storing energy.
Among these are thermal storages, where this
heat converts water into steam to drive conventional
steam tur-bines or the heat is used
for industrial processes or district heating solutions.
Beneficial is the aspect that these thermal
storages can be combined with existing
steam cycle power plants. An important topic
remains to support the national grids with
primary and secondary control. Sector coupling
and Power to X-technologies offer many
more opportunities beyond the energy storage
that also will be discussed in this article.
Introduction
For fighting (and ultimately stopping) climate
change on a global scale, we need to
push towards decarbonization fast. In this
regard, extending the renewables is the key.
Correspondingly several challenges for our
energy system will occur: Maintaining stable
grids for handling intermittent renewable
infeed. And shifting renewable energy in
times with high demand, thus ensuring a
24/7 availability of CO 2 -free energy. Some
renewables (wind, geothermal, tidal, biomass,
etc.) are available throughout the
year, while solar energy is mainly produced
in summer. However, most energy in the
northern hemisphere is needed in winter,
which requires an energy shift. Additionally,
a big deviation in daily (and even hourly)
cycles occurs, resulting in difficulties to obtain
a stable grid.
To solve these challenges, there is not a single
energy storage solution which fits to all
requirements and an entirely re-invented
energy system needs to be installed. But the
question is: Which storages to take or to
combine and what will the energy supply of
the future look like?
The basics
Besides the availability of renewable electricity,
we are furthermore facing the challenge
that the electricity demand is growing
rapidly, due to a growing market of battery
electric vehicles (BEV) and electrification of
industry (EoI) for further decarbonization 1 .
Due to the target to reduce greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions, chemical industries, concrete
and cement industries and the steel
industry are looking out for alternative solutions
for their highly energy intensive processes,
e.g. chemically reducing of iron oxide
via usage of hydrogen instead of black
coal as done nowadays.
1
EOI describes the replacement of gas and oil
boilers in residential areas with electrical heaters
and heat pumps. Also, it covers the generation
of industrial process steam by using renewable
energy and convert it into required
heat by resistive heating instead of burning
fossil fuel.
28 | vgbe energy journal