Minimum US national load is ~400GWh and peak is ~675GWh, [1] so there’s a tremendous amount of storage which could be used to smooth out the curve.
Perfectly smoothing the curve would require something like 2TWh (charging at 150GW for 12 hours and then discharging at 150GW for 12 hours), which would be total overkill, but every little bit can help stabilize the grid—and spot prices—that much more.
The fact that 10 years from now we could have 100GWh of storage, and adding maybe 50GWh per year is pretty awesome. Global Li-Ion battery production is forecast to be ~1TWh by then.
Between electric cars, home storage, and grid storage, chemical battery production seems like it’s turning into a trillion dollar market. Eventually we’ll add airplanes to that list!
Perfectly smoothing the curve would require something like 2TWh (charging at 150GW for 12 hours and then discharging at 150GW for 12 hours), which would be total overkill, but every little bit can help stabilize the grid—and spot prices—that much more.
The fact that 10 years from now we could have 100GWh of storage, and adding maybe 50GWh per year is pretty awesome. Global Li-Ion battery production is forecast to be ~1TWh by then.
Between electric cars, home storage, and grid storage, chemical battery production seems like it’s turning into a trillion dollar market. Eventually we’ll add airplanes to that list!
[1] - https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=27192