Watts Up Magazine wattsup magazine online | Page 42

INNOVATION
Battery Storage Facility
When the sun
goes down and
wind stops
blowing, solar
panels stop
generating and
wind turbines
stop turning.
WILL BATTERIES SORT OUT CLEAN RENEWABLE ENERGY
CHALLENGES?
B
atteries and other energy storage energy. When the sun goes down and wind
technologies are ready to solve the stops blowing, solar panels stop generating
problem of variability of renewable and wind turbines stop turning.
energy. Kenya is a vast country with a lot of
sunny spells. However, despite laws being put Demand
in place there is still a very low penetration of There have been remarkable improvements
battery storage of energy either through solar in that area in terms of storage the battery
or other sources. The country is undergoing storage technology is getting better and
numerous challenges in providing adequate better with prices coming down considerably.
power and at an affordable price. Hence the We will see an explosion of storage battery
solutions for customers
use of the sun as an energy
using solar especially in
provider is yet to be embraced
The price of solar
residential and office
fully.
systems, storage and parks. These market in
Kenya have not been
Still, critics have mentioned
that the price of solar systems, pricing as the biggest tapped fully and we
do expect in the next
storage and pricing as the
biggest determinant to the
determinant to the five years more than
30MW will be stored in
penetration of a battery
storage in the country. penetration of a battery batteries.
However constant incremental
improvements have been done storage in the country. Peaker replacements
The opportunity lies
on the prices of solar globally
and other renewable products that have in peaker replacements in areas especially
ensured that we have low prices going forward. where power is drained very fast these
The other argument that has been leveled in the batteries can provide cushion to perennial
discussion is on the variability of the renewable problem of overloading the system and
42
WATTS UP MAGAZINE APR - MAY 2017
transformers. Many large consumers will
move to system shortly.
Network referral and smooth demand
peaks
This lithium batteries can also help in
Network deferral where they boost the
network delaying the investment in
upgrading the system. The Batteries will
also help the large number of consumers
and businesses to smooth out their
demand peaks to keep their total demand
purchased from the grid to below the
levels which would make them incur
capacity charges.
Spinning reserve
The storage facilities will also help
provide ancillary services to customers by
providing ‘spinning reserve’ which is good
and maintains the quality of electricity
supply which is provided mainly by diesel
generators. Diesel operated micro grids
of medium scale do not need building
of new lines for connectivity as they can
use the batteries instead of investing in
interconnection