Business, Economics, Planning and Policy for Energy Storage in Low-Carbon Futures

在许多国家(包括中国和英国)，能源系统的脱碳可能涉及大规模部署间歇性输出的可再生发电机，以及将负荷率非常低的能源服务(如供热和交通)电气化。电力供需的这些变化将导致对储能的巨大需求。我们为Carbon Trust所做的工作估计，在英国有效地部署能源储存，可以在2030年将低碳电力系统的成本降低150亿GB。存储的部署和运行是一项复杂的任务，因为它可以提供许多不同的服务，包括能源套利(错峰买入，以更高的峰价出售)、能源储备、解决输电和配电限制以及提高系统可靠性。对其中每一项的重视程度可能会影响投资模式，需要复杂的规划工具来确保能够做出最佳决策。我们将改进这些工具，以便准确表示各种存储系统。现有的许多关于存储的工作都假设它可能被简单地用来推迟替换原本会超载的网络资产，但我们将考虑更激进的选择，使用存储作为更广泛的智能电网的一部分来积极管理配电网络。我们可以使用我们的模型来计算当能量存储为网络公司和系统用户提供一系列服务时的经济价值。我们将衡量拥有一个存储系统的选项价值，该存储系统可以在比获得同意建造传输线所需的时间短得多的时间内部署，从而在我们如何应对能源系统未来发展的不确定性方面增加灵活性。重要的是，必须根据适当的模型作出这种决定，这些模型能够量化储存所能提供的各种服务，同时考虑到发电和需求在一天和一年中的变化方式，并衡量输电和配电网络影响的影响。重要的是要认识到，许多国家(包括英国)已经放开了电力行业，只有在企业相信存在可行的商业案例的情况下，才会寻求电力储存。为示范项目测试特定商业模式的工作已经开始(通过低碳网络基金)，但这需要推广。我们将提供一项量化评估，评估目前是否存在能源储存的商业案例，以及需要做些什么才能创建一个商业案例。这将涉及对围绕电力储存撰写的合同进行详细研究，借鉴其他类型储存的现有安排，如天然气或农业大宗商品。我们会研究电力市场的规则如何影响储存和发电技术的选择，我们会问需要甚麽政策，以确保储存在合理的部署和运作下，在经济上是可行的。我们将确定有助于将能源存储从原型转移到大规模部署的技术政策。国际输电可能会补充一个国家内的能源储存，如果邻国采取不同的战略来处理间歇性，我们将评估潜在的相互冲突的激励措施。今天，围绕能源政策的太多辩论都是基于缺乏足够证据的断言。我们将开发的模型和我们将执行的分析，将提供对一系列政策有效性的数字估计，使监管机构和其他政策制定者能够选择将以最有效的方式导致脱碳的选项。

Decarbonising the energy system in many countries (including both China and the UK) is likely to involve the large-scale deployment of renewable electricity generators with intermittent output and the electrification of energy services such as heat and transport that have very low load factors. These changes in electricity supply and demand will lead to a great need for energy storage. Our work for the Carbon Trust has estimated that the effective deployment of energy storage in the UK could reduce the cost of a low-carbon electricity system by £15 billion in 2030. The deployment and operation of storage is a complex task, since it can provide many different services, including energy arbitrage (buying off-peak and selling at higher peak prices), energy reserves, resolving transmission and distribution constraints and improving system reliability. The weight placed on each of these could affect the pattern of investment, and sophisticated planning tools are required to ensure that optimal decisions can be taken. We will improve these tools so that we can accurately represent a variety of storage systems. Much of the existing work on storage assumes that it might be used simply to postpone the "like for like" replacement of network assets that would otherwise be overloaded, but we will consider more radical options, using storage to actively manage the distribution network as part of the broader smart grid.We can use our models to calculate the economic value of energy storage when it provides a range of services to network companies and system users. We will measure the option value of having a storage system that can be deployed in much less time than it takes to get consent to build a transmission line, adding flexibility in how we respond to uncertainty over the future evolution of the energy system. It is important that such decisions are made on the basis of appropriate models, capable of quantifying the wide range of services that storage can provide, taking account of the way that electricity generation and demand varies over the course of the day and the year, and measuring the impact of transmission and distribution network effects. It is important to recognise that many countries (including the UK) have liberalised their electricity industries, and storage will only be pursued if companies believe that a viable business case exists. Work has started (via the Low Carbon Networks Fund) to test particular business models for demonstration projects, but this needs to be generalised. We will provide a quantified assessment of whether there is a business case for energy storage at present, and of what needs to be done to create one. This will involve a detailed study of the contracts that would be written around electricity storage, drawing lessons from existing arrangements for other kinds of storage, such as for gas or agricultural commodities. We will study how the rules of the electricity market could affect the choices of storage and generation technology.We will ask what policies are needed to ensure that storage can be economically viable when sensibly deployed and operated. We will identify technology policies that can help move energy storage from prototypes to large scale deployment. International transmission may complement energy storage within a country, and we will assess the potentially conflicting incentives if neighbouring countries adopt different strategies for dealing with intermittency. Too many debates around energy policy today are based on assertions without sufficient evidence. The models that we will develop, and the analysis that we will perform, will provide numerical estimates of the effectiveness of a range of policies, allowing regulators and other policy-makers to choose options that will lead to decarbonisation in the most effective way.