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Duck Curve: The best thing to ever happen to energy storage","the-duck-curve-the-best-thing-to-ever-happen-to-energy-storage","article/the-duck-curve-the-best-thing-to-ever-happen-to-energy-storage",{"_uid":557,"date":558,"tags":559,"editor":560,"content":570,"excerpt":659,"featured":50,"reporter":660,"_editable":664,"component":665,"seo_title":553,"categories":666,"visibility":673,"author_company":49,"featured_image":674,"seo_description":659,"author_full_name":49,"author_job_title":49,"formattedDate":679,"formattedArticleDate":680},"9bfea295-042a-432b-8080-c4abd3ffeb24","2016-07-20 00:00",[],[561],{"slug":562,"name":563,"content":564},"didi-bostock","Didi Bostock",{"job_title":565,"image":566,"bio":568,"linkedin":569},"Editor - Energy Transition & Economics",{"filename":567},"https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/512x512/2c5ca5c1a3/didi-bostock.jpeg","Didi is the Energy Transition & Economics Editor at Benchmark, covering a broad range of markets across the energy transition. His remit spans from downstream sectors such as BESS and EVs, through to midstream such as new technologies and battery production, to upstream critical minerals mining. He also leads on financial analysis across these supply chains, alongside in-depth policy analysis.\n","https://www.linkedin.com/in/didi-bostock-656342198/",{"type":571,"content":572},"doc",[573,580,585,590,593,598,603,608,613,618,623,628,633,638,643,648,656],{"type":574,"attrs":575,"content":576},"paragraph",{"textAlign":49},[577],{"text":578,"type":579},"Beware the ferocious duck curve. It’s looming entry to the energy markets will cause chaos and failures. It will wreak destruction everywhere it appears.","text",{"type":574,"attrs":581,"content":582},{"textAlign":49},[583],{"text":584,"type":579},"Not bad for a duck, huh? While the duck curve represents a new problem for the electricity industry overall, it actually represents an enormous opportunity for battery-based energy storage.",{"type":574,"attrs":586,"content":587},{"textAlign":49},[588],{"text":589,"type":579},"For those that aren’t all that familiar with the duck curve, it is simply the graphical representation of the problems raised with high penetrations of solar photovoltaics (PV) on a grid. If there is a lot of solar power being pumped onto the electricity network when the sun is shining, supply and demand go out of balance both when PV is producing the most (from the 10 AM to 2 PM period on average in the U.S.), which leads to an overproduction of electricity, and when the sun shines the least (from the 4 PM to 10 PM period), which leads to increased demand. An example of a duck curve is in the title image and below.",{"type":574,"attrs":591,"content":592},{"textAlign":49},[],{"type":574,"attrs":594,"content":595},{"textAlign":49},[596],{"text":597,"type":579},"As photovoltaic penetration increases, the demand for electricity drops – hence the increasing girth of the belly of the duck.",{"type":574,"attrs":599,"content":600},{"textAlign":49},[601],{"text":602,"type":579},"Then the tables are turned as the PV stops producing, leading to a very sudden increase in demand–the rising crown of the duck.",{"type":574,"attrs":604,"content":605},{"textAlign":49},[606],{"text":607,"type":579},"The electricity system we have today fundamentally hates the words “imbalance” and “sudden”. No natural gas peaker plant is capable of quickly turning on and providing all that extra electricity between the hours of 4 PM and 5 PM.",{"type":574,"attrs":609,"content":610},{"textAlign":49},[611],{"text":612,"type":579},"Batteries, however, are capable of providing sudden bursts of power in a timescale measured in nanoseconds. And the current batteries available (mostly variants of Lithium Ion) are especially good at operating in a two-to-four hour charge or discharge cycle.",{"type":574,"attrs":614,"content":615},{"textAlign":49},[616],{"text":617,"type":579},"The problem with using batteries on today’s grid is that they are expensive. While that is changing (very quickly), the capital expense of buying a battery system is significant.",{"type":574,"attrs":619,"content":620},{"textAlign":49},[621],{"text":622,"type":579},"The duck curve, however, opens up an opportunity to change the economics of battery systems. It won’t change the price of the batteries, but it will double the revenue stream for an installed battery. Instead of doing a single charge-discharge cycle each day, the duck curves opens up the possibility of doing two charge-discharge cycles every day:",{"type":574,"attrs":624,"content":625},{"textAlign":49},[626],{"text":627,"type":579},"If a single charge/discharge cycle represents X amount of revenue earned, then the duck curve allows for 2X the revenue in the same amount of time. And as anyone who has ever invested in bonds knows, that doubles the value of the underlying asset. It also allows the owner of the energy storage system to cram in as many charge-discharge",{"type":574,"attrs":629,"content":630},{"textAlign":49},[631],{"text":632,"type":579},"cycles as possible in a shorter time period, which is valuable considering today’s batteries, which are hard to keep from degrading beyond a ten year time period.",{"type":574,"attrs":634,"content":635},{"textAlign":49},[636],{"text":637,"type":579},"The flaw in this model is that there is currently no method for owners of battery systems to take advantage of the imbalance that the duck curve represents. Electric utility rates tend to be monolithic when it comes to the hours of the day (most of us pay the exact same amount for electricity at 2 AM in the winter as we do for electricity at 2 PM on a hot summer day).",{"type":574,"attrs":639,"content":640},{"textAlign":49},[641],{"text":642,"type":579},"The Hawaii Public Utilities Commission recently introduced the first “reverse time-of-use rate” pilot programme for the island of Kauai, which reduces electricity costs during the solar peak and increases them during the evening shoulder. Expect many more localities that start to experience high penetration rates for PV systems to start issuing similar rates.",{"type":574,"attrs":644,"content":645},{"textAlign":49},[646],{"text":647,"type":579},"And if they do, then owners of battery systems will be in a very profitable position.",{"type":574,"attrs":649,"content":650},{"textAlign":49},[651],{"text":652,"type":579,"marks":653},"Sam Jaffe, Managing Director, Cairn Energy Research Associates – www.cairnera.com",[654],{"type":655},"italic",{"type":574,"attrs":657,"content":658},{"textAlign":49},[],"Beware the ferocious duck curve. It’s looming entry to the energy markets will cause chaos and failures. It will wreak destruction everywhere it appears. Not bad for a duck, huh? While the duck curve represents a new problem for the electricity industry overall, it actually represents an enormous opportunity for battery-based energy storage. For those that aren’t […]",[661],{"slug":562,"name":563,"content":662},{"job_title":565,"image":663,"bio":568,"linkedin":569},{"filename":567},"\u003C!--#storyblok#{\"name\": \"article\", \"space\": \"\", \"uid\": \"9bfea295-042a-432b-8080-c4abd3ffeb24\", \"id\": \"\"}-->","article",[667,670],{"slug":668,"name":669},"batteries","Batteries",{"slug":671,"name":672},"critical-minerals","Critical Minerals","private",{"id":49,"alt":675,"name":675,"focus":675,"title":675,"source":675,"filename":676,"copyright":675,"fieldtype":677,"meta_data":678,"is_external_url":51},"","https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/de85fde492/bm-electrical-grid-transmission-power-lines-600.jpg","asset",{"alt":675,"title":675,"source":675,"copyright":675},"Jul 20, 2016","20th July 2016",[],[],1792773948683]