The Battery Boom Continues

May 22, 2020

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This week, we cover some hopeful signs amidst the economic destruction.

First, we’ll look at the record-breaking activity in battery storage.

A coal plant in North Dakota will be replaced in part with a one-acre battery array from Form Energy that uses a new technology capable of discharging for 150 hours – that’s more than 30 times longer than lithium batteries.

Hawaii’s electric utility just awarded contracts for 16 projects that add up to more than 3 gigawatt-hours of storage, in order to replace an oil-fired and a coal-fired power plant.

And in California, Southern California Edison signed contracts for 770 megawatts of batteries, many paired with solar projects, to replace gas plants. That’s 200 megawatts more than the entire battery capacity installed in 2019.

Plus, in China, more hybrid wind/solar and battery plants are starting to emerge.

This led Dan Finn-Foley, Wood Mackenzie’s head of energy storage, to declare: “The utility energy storage market is blowing through milestones faster than we can report them.”

Then, renewables are surging and coal is declining. A new IEA report says that renewable generation will increase in 2020 -- pushing higher-cost fossil resources out of the market. "In all regions that implemented lockdown measures," the IEA report said, "the electricity supply underwent a notable shift towards low-carbon energy sources." We’ll look at why.

Finally: presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden just unveiled a new climate task force. From the Sunrise Movement to a former EPA chief, we’ll talk about who’s on it, and look at their roles. What will this task force accomplish in terms of agenda-setting and setting the political tone?