"New energy + energy storage" should seize the opportunity of "carbon neutrality"

The proposal of "carbon peak and carbon neutrality" will accelerate the leapfrog development of new energy sources such as wind power and solar power generation. At the same time, the high proportion of renewable energy will put forward higher requirements for the flexible adjustment capacity of the power system, bringing new opportunities to the development of energy storage.

New energy by 2030

New storage or more than 34GW

On September 22, 2020, China pledged to the world at the United Nations General Assembly that "China will increase its nationally determined contribution, adopt more powerful policies and measures, strive to reach the peak of carbon dioxide emissions before 2030, and strive to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060" (hereinafter referred to as the "30·60 double carbon goal"). On December 13, 2020, China further elaborated on the carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals at the Climate Ambition Summit, proposing that by 2030, China's carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP will be reduced by more than 65% compared with 2005, and non-fossil energy will account for about 25% of primary energy consumption. The total installed capacity of wind power and solar power will reach more than 1.2 billion kilowatts.

Data released by the National Energy Administration show that in 2020, the country's new wind power installed capacity of 71.67 million kilowatts, solar power generation of 48.2 million kilowatts, the total of new installed capacity is about 120 million kilowatts. Previously, the National Energy Administration announced that from January to November 2020, the installed capacity of wind power was 24.62 million kilowatts, and the installed capacity of solar power was 25.9 million kilowatts. This means that the new installed capacity of wind power and solar power in December 2020 alone will reach 47.05 million kilowatts and 23.3 million kilowatts respectively. By the end of 2020, the total installed capacity of wind power and solar power will exceed 530 million kilowatts.

The National Energy Administration has released the target of 120 million kilowatts of new wind power and solar power in 2021, and if energy storage is configured according to 5% of new energy installed capacity, then the new energy side energy storage scale will increase by 6GW in 2021.

According to the goal of more than 1.2 billion kilowatts of wind power and solar power installed in 2030, it is expected that in the next 10 years, the total annual increase of wind power and solar power will be at least 67 million kilowatts, in order to achieve the goal of more than 1.2 billion kilowatts. If calculated according to 5% of the configured energy storage ratio, in 2030, the scenery new energy will add more than 34GW of supporting energy storage.

The China Investment Association and the Rocky Mountain Institute predict that under the goal of "carbon neutrality", solar and wind power will account for 70% of the total installed power capacity in China by 2050. Accordingly, electrochemical energy storage will increase from 189MW in 2016 to 510GW, with an average annual growth rate of 26%.

The proposal of the "30·60 dual carbon target" will accelerate the leapfrog development of new energy sources such as wind power and solar power generation, and the high proportion of renewable energy will put forward higher requirements for the flexible adjustment capacity of the power system, bringing new opportunities to the development of energy storage. The energy storage device can realize load clipping and valley filling, increase the power grid peak regulation capacity, and also participate in the system frequency regulation and voltage regulation to improve the security and stability of the power grid. Accelerating the effective integration of energy storage into all aspects of the power system's power generation, transmission and use is of great significance for ensuring the reliable supply of electricity and the efficient use of new energy, and achieving the "30·60 double carbon goal".

"New energy + storage" has many problems

One is insufficient flexibility resources.

Due to the imbalance of China's resource endowment and energy consumption load, coupled with the time-space mismatch of new energy, the large-scale access of scenery to the power grid, its volatility and intermittent impact on the power grid has been increasingly amplified. The power grid needs more flexible resources to support the safe, stable and efficient operation of the power system due to the huge pressure of peak regulation and absorption. At present, the flexibility of China's power system is poor, which is far from meeting the requirements of the rapid growth of the scale of photovoltaic power grid. China's flexible regulation of power, including fuel units, gas units and pumping units accounted for much lower than the world average level. In particular, in the three North areas, where new energy is rich, flexible adjustment accounts for less than 4%. The biggest risk to the operation of a high-proportion renewable energy power system is the lack of flexible adjustable resources, the obvious lack of frequency and peak regulation resources, and the prominent security and stability problems.