Carbon and Net Energy Performance of Flexible Power Generation Technologies

Great uncertainty surrounds our efforts to mitigate climate impacts from energy use. One promising strategy for long-term climate mitigation is the use of renewable resources including wind and solar. Their weather-dependent nature however requires flexible power grid technologies to maintain power grid stability. As more intermittent and distributed renewable energy resources are added to the electricity grid, more flexible forms of power generation and storage are needed to maintain power quality and manage the imbalance between supply and demand. Energy storage and natural gas fired combustion turbines can both provide the needed flexibility. However, adding these technologies to the power grid will require extra investments and results in additional emissions from manufacturing and operating them. We compare the energy and carbon intensities of these options and show that the environmental costs and benefits of adding flexibility to the grid vary widely. Some options greatly improve the environmental performance of the electricity grid, for example using lithium ion batteries coupled with wind power generators, while other options make it worse, namely, storing grid power using traditional lead acid batteries. Knowing this can help guide good decisions about technology choices for the rapidly evolving electricity grid.

Speaker: Charlie Barnhart, Western Washington Univ