Climate Positive

Not every battery is created equal | Jacob Mansfield, Emma Konet and Adam Reeve

Feb 22, 2024

Exploring how batteries can inadvertently increase emissions instead of reducing them, the podcast highlights the urgent need for economic incentives to support grid decarbonization. Insights on unlocking revenue streams, addressing battery deployment factors, and promoting grid decarbonization efforts through carbon avoidance offsets are also discussed. The episode concludes with a focus on personal productivity, influential books, and the importance of being climate positive.

33:08

Creator website

Episode guests

Jacob Mansfield

Emma Konet

Adam Reeve

AI Summary

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Energy storage market is rapidly growing, but new batteries often increase emissions, not reduce them.

Efforts by Energy Storage Solutions Consortium aim to align economic incentives for accelerating grid decarbonization.

Deep dives

Inadvertently Increasing Emissions from Batteries

Despite assumptions that batteries would naturally reduce emissions, it was found that the majority of batteries actually increased emissions. The energy storage market is rapidly growing, but the storage added to the grid often increases emissions rather than reducing them. Efforts are being made by the Energy Storage Solutions Consortium to align economic incentives in the storage market with accelerating grid decarbonization.

Introduction

3min

Addressing Incentives for Decarbonization through Energy Storage Solutions

2min

Unlocking Revenue Streams and Emission Impacts of Batteries in the Grid

10min

Factors Influencing Battery Deployment for Emissions Reduction

3min

Exploring Carbon Avoidance Offsets and Grid Decarbonization Efforts

10min

Exploring Productivity, Book Influences, and Climate Positivity Perspectives

5min

As the energy density of batteries continues to increase even as costs keep declining, the stationary energy storage market is booming, with investment growing by over 7x over the last few years – from $5 billion in 2020 to over $35 billion in 2023 – and with battery installations tripling just last year alone.

While an influx of storage is certainly needed to integrate the vast amount of renewables we need to fully decarbonize the grid, the storage we are adding to the grid is not always or even usually reducing overall carbon emissions. In fact, too often new batteries are resulting in positive net new emissions – an outcome almost no one wants.

In this episode, Chad Reed chats with Jacob Mansfield and Emma Konet of Tierra Climate and Adam Reeve of REsurety to learn more about the efforts of the Energy Storage Solutions Consortium (ESSC), which seeks to align the economic incentives of the storage market with truly accelerating grid decarbonization.

Links:

Energy Storage Solutions Consortium (ESSC)

Charging Towards Zero: Harnessing Batteries and Carbon Contracts to Accelerate Grid Decarbonization

Decarbonization: Stocks and flows, abundance and scarcity, net zero

Episode recorded February 14, 2024

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, Hilary, and Guy at climatepositive@hasi.com.