Energy Storage

As a key factor to allow the continuous growth of renewable energies, energy storage technologies are now more than ever in the spotlight. To grasp the stakes, understand the technology diversity, learn relevant orders of magnitudes and comprehend the close intricacy of energy storage with energy and environmental issues, Enea has published a detailed and well-documented publication on the subject.

The increasingly volatile electricity market, the technological constraints of integrating intermittent energy into the network, and the need for better environmental impact, argue in favour of developing energy storage. Storage has significant advantages and will logically find its place as a complement to other compensatory solutions (interconnections, flexible production and demand management). This issue concerns all players (electricity producers and consumers, electricity network managers) in different ways. For each of them, the technological choices will differ according to the specific needs identified and the potential services provided by storage solutions.

Each energy storage system has its own advantages, disadvantages and range of use. It is also important to think about energy storage, not just electricity storage: storage of utilities, especially thermal, represents an opportunity. The current context is particularly conducive to reflection by stakeholders on the subject of storage, which must be a service-based approach rather than a technology-based approach. The aim today is to seize opportunities that are already profitable, but also to anticipate future technological, economic and regulatory developments. For these evolutions to see the light of day, obstacles of various kinds must be overcome:

• Legislative work must be carried out to create the enabling regulatory environment that is still missing. Current thinking on the French capacity mechanism is moving in this direction.
• Some technologies will pose problems of societal acceptance that need to be anticipated right away.
• An R&D effort is still needed in most technology families to achieve economically viable solutions.

Energy storage is a technical lever that is difficult to rule out to integrate intermittent means of production within a decarbonated energy mix. It also represents an economic opportunity for many players. The first solutions are technically available, and the changing economic context is making them increasingly profitable. Numerous innovations and technological breakthroughs are expected in this emerging sector.