Graph: The Rapid Growth of Batteries as Electricity Source on US Grid

Join daily news updates from CleanTechnica on electronic mail. Or follow us on Google News!

• Utility-scale battery vitality storage programs have been rising rapidly as a supply of electrical energy capability in america in recent times. Within the first seven months of 2024, operators added 5 gigawatts (GW) of capability to the U.S. electric power gridbased on knowledge in our July 2024 electric generator inventory. In 2010, solely 4 megawatts (MW) of utility-scale battery vitality storage was added in america. In July 2024, greater than 20.7 GW of battery vitality storage capability was out there in america.
• Battery vitality storage programs present electrical energy to the facility grid and supply a spread of companies to support electric power grids. Amongst these companies are balancing provide and demand, transferring electrical energy from durations of low costs to durations of excessive costs (a technique often called arbitrage), and permitting electrical energy from renewable sources, akin to wind and photo voltaic, to be saved till wanted as a substitute of curbing these sources at instances after they produce extra electrical energy than is consumed.
• Power storage programs are usually not primary electrical energy sources, that means the know-how doesn’t create electrical energy from a gas or pure useful resource. As an alternative, they retailer electrical energy that has already been created from an electrical energy generator or the electrical energy grid, which makes vitality storage programs secondary sources of electrical energy. Power storage programs use extra electrical energy for charging than they supply when supplying electrical energy to the electrical energy grid. Secondary sources of electrical energy akin to batteries are included in our Annual Electric Generator Report and in our preliminary month-to-month electrical generator stock knowledge as a result of they supply the capability to satisfy load despite the fact that vitality storage programs don’t generate electrical energy instantly.
• Most U.S. utility-scale battery vitality storage programs use lithium-ion batteries.
• Our knowledge assortment defines small-scale batteries as having lower than 1 MW of energy capability. Small-scale battery knowledge are reported individually from utility-scale battery programs.
• Different forms of vitality storage programs embody pumped-storage hydroelectricity, flywheels, and compressed air. Extra detailed details about how batteries and these different programs work is on the market on our Energy Explained page about vitality storage for electrical energy technology.

Principal contributors: Kimberly Peterson, Mark Morey. Initially printed on Today in Energy.