To accommodate a growing share of intermittent renewables in the energy mix, while also maintaining grid stability, will require a major expansion of energy storage capacity. Among the range of long duration energy storage options currently available, liquid air offers a number of advantages, including small footprint, gigawatt scalability, great siting flexibility, no cycling capacity degradation, ability to provide synchronous power, and low levelised cost of storage.
published in Modern Power Systems. November/December 2020
December 9, 2020: Nearly all forecasts predict that most of the electricity produced in the world will be from intermittent solar and wind resources by 2050. While wind and solar plants currently make up 18% of the world’s installed electric power capacity this number is expected to grow to nearly 70% by 2050 (Figure 1). Although some new solid fuel, hydro and nuclear plants will be built over this same period, an equal amount is expected to be retired, effectively keeping their net contribution to the world’s power capacity at about the same level as today.
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