Energy Storage Is Progressing Faster Than We Think
According to the World Bank’s 1996 estimates, China was set to produce 9 gigawatts of wind energy and 0.5 gigawatts of solar PV by 2020. Those estimates were extremely conservative, considering China has already surpassed that with 62 gigawatts of wind and 3 gigawatts of PV in 2011.
Dr. Eric Martinot who conducted 2 years of research regarding renewable energy, says that we need to erase the conventional wisdom that the grid is unable to take a high capacity of renewables. He also dismisses the view that we need to improve on storage technologies before they can become widespread. “An 80 percent share [from renewables] is possible in most scenarios without large amounts of storage,” he explained.
Dr. Martinot envisions a day some time in the near future when rooftops will no longer be ‘bare’, and microgrids, community-scale systems, and autonomous-home systems will be in use everywhere.
If you want to know more about this and other topics directly from end users of energy storage technologies join us at one of these annual events: The Energy Storage World Forum (Grid Scale Applications), or The Residential Energy Storage Forum, or one of our Training Courses.
