Energy storage steps up: the growing role of batteries on the grid, and the challenge from winter storms

It’s the hottest sector in the global energy industry right now, driven by rising power demand, the need to back up variable renewable generation, and escalating threats to grid resilience. It is of course, battery storage. Host Ed Crooks and regular guest Amy Myers Jaffe speak with Julian Nebreda, CEO of energy storage systems company Fluence, about why batteries are becoming essential grid infrastructure.

At peak hours during the bitterly cold weather that has covered much of North America in recent weeks, batteries accounted for about 1% of US power supply. But even a relatively small share of battery capacity can play an outsized role in preventing outages, Julian says. He argues that batteries are best understood not as replacements for fossil fuels, but as system optimisers: delivering fast-response capacity, stabilising grids and allowing generation assets to run more efficiently. With Amy and Ed, he addresses some of the common myths around batteries’ cold-weather performance, multi-peak demand days and reliability compared with traditional generation.

The gang explores the next wave of demand growth for batteries, particularly from new data centres for AI. Julian points to “speed to power” as a major new driver for storage deployment, as the hyperscalers and other tech companies try to bring new data centre capacity online as quickly as they can. Their discussion also covers the geopolitical significance of storage, the attempt to build a battery supply chain in the US, the strengths of distributed versus centralised system designs and examples of operations from Texas to Ukraine. As Amy notes, the industry is still catching up to the full potential of storage, but the potential is enormous.

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