How a battery shortage is hampering the U.S. switch to wind, solar power
U.S. renewable energy developers have delayed or scrapped several big battery projects meant to store electrical power on the grid in recent months, scuttling plans to replace fossil fuels with wind and solar energy.
At least a dozen storage projects meant to support growing renewable energy supplies have been postponed, canceled or renegotiated as labor and transport bottlenecks, soaring minerals prices, and competition from the electric vehicle industry crimp supply.
One previously unreported dispute over a delayed California storage project has even wound up in court.
The slowdown in utility-scale battery installations threatens the pace of the U.S. transition away from fossil fuels as the Biden administration seeks to decarbonize the grid by 2035. The delays could pose a threat to power reliability in states that already depend heavily on renewable energy, like California.
Storing power is considered vital to the expansion of solar and wind energy because it allows electricity generated when the sun is shining or wind is blowing to be used at the end of the day when consumers need it most.
Related Knowledge Center: Energy storage
A key to the adoption of renewable energy is the development of economical ways to store energy, in the form of batteries or other technologies.
Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: renewables
Renewable energy sources — once the fuel of the future, then practical in specific, narrow applications — are increasingly economic mainstream sources of power generation. Hydropower was long the mainstay of U.S. renewable electricity generation, although wind power surpassed hydro for the first time in 2019, and solar continues its rapid growth. The continued growth of wind and solar, with their fluctuations, is tied in part to improvements in storage technology: batteries.
Related Knowledge Center: Electrical grid reliability
With the need to reduce use of fossil fuels in transportation and other areas, demand is likely to increase for solutions that increase dependence on electricity and the electrical grid.