The eve of the "photovoltaic + battery" revolution

Tesla's 'PowerWall' in the spotlight

The 2015 "North American Photovoltaic Exhibition" is the 8th. The highlight of this year's exhibition is "fixed battery": for the first time, a special battery area has been set up at the exhibition venue. There are 500 exhibiting companies and 50 battery-related companies. Compared with 20 in 2014, it has more than doubled. The battery symposium was well attended by many people.

In addition, the opening ceremony of the exhibition also invited the founder and chief technology officer (CTO) of Tesla Motors (Tesla Mortor), JB Straubel, to give a speech. Straubel sent the industry on fire a few months ago with the release of the "PowerWall", a low-priced, stylish battery.

Straubel said of Tesla's relationship with the photovoltaic industry: "[Tesla's] fundamental goal is how to make cars sustainable. We don't just want to make electric vehicles (EVs). It's important to It’s where the EV fuel comes from. Connecting that (with the company’s business model) leads to renewable energy. (Having EVs on renewable energy) is something we really want to do.”

Straubel said, "No one would have expected the price of photovoltaic power generation systems to drop so fast before. Batteries are also developing according to the same price curve, and prices will drop sharply," suggesting that batteries, like photovoltaic power generation systems, In the future, the popularity will be accelerated as the price continues to decrease.

Straubel said, "batteries will further develop photovoltaic power grid integration, is the key to achieve a 100% renewable energy grid." He also said at the end, "The combination of photovoltaic power generation systems and batteries is expected to set off a revolution in the US energy industry."

The total installed photovoltaic capacity reaches 21GW

By the way, the opening ceremony of Straubel's speech was full, and there were even people standing. This means that stationary batteries will occupy an important position in the photovoltaic power generation market in the future.

In 2014, the installed capacity of photovoltaic power generation in the United States was 6.2GW, and the cumulative installed capacity exceeded 21GW. Although the problem does not appear when the installed capacity of photovoltaic power generation is small, the adverse effects of voltage changes on the power system have always been a concern. In fact, in California, which has the most installed photovoltaic power generation capacity, and Hawaii, which has the highest photovoltaic power generation penetration rate, with the introduction of a large number of distributed photovoltaic power generation systems, there have been problems such as supply and demand imbalances such as the amount of photovoltaic power generation will exceed the grid demand during the day. .

California proposed to increase the proportion of electricity sales from renewable energy to 33% by 2020, and Hawaii proposed to use 100% renewable energy by 2045. In order to further increase the import of renewable energy, including photovoltaics, solutions using batteries have been found. California requires three private power companies to install a total of 1,325MW of energy storage batteries by 2020. State governments have enacted laws requiring power companies to install batteries, the first of its kind in the United States.

The U.S. “net-metering” system has so far underpinned the growth of distributed photovoltaics. However, the state power companies are planning to change or repeal the system. Net metering tariff is a system in which the electricity consumption of the residence is subtracted from the electricity generation of the distributed photovoltaic power generation system for residential use, and the surplus electricity is transferred to the next month. Although the details of the system vary from state to state, basically 1kWh of electricity is generated to offset 1kWh of electricity consumption. That is, when the power generation exceeds the power consumption, the excess power is purchased by the power company at the same price as the consumer's unit purchase price, which is similar to the surplus power purchase system in Japan.

"Photovoltaic + battery" market will grow rapidly

However, with the increasing popularity of photovoltaic power generation in recent years, power companies are planning to reduce the purchase price to below the retail price or the same level as the wholesale price. Moreover, some power companies take too long to go through the grid connection procedures for the photovoltaic power generation system, which threatens the further popularization of photovoltaic power generation.

If the takeover system is abolished, the surplus power will be provided to the power company free of charge. In order to avoid this unreasonable situation and ensure investment returns, all parties are paying more and more attention to batteries. Batteries that were previously too expensive to buy have also become acceptable due to falling prices (Tesla's wholesale price for a 10kWh Power Wall is $3500 plus installation, by the way, about $7000) . In this way, a true self-production and self-sale mode can be realized, that is, the surplus power generated by photovoltaic power generation does not flow to the grid, but is stored in the battery for consumption at night.

GTM Research (GTM), an American industrial survey company, delivered a speech on the topic of "US Photovoltaic Power Generation + Stationary Battery Market" at the Photovoltaic Exhibition. According to the company's data, in 2014, 0.1% or less (about 4MW) of photovoltaic power generation systems installed in parallel with stationary storage batteries.

Growing consumer awareness and knowledge of batteries, and rapid cost reductions such as the introduction of lithium-ion batteries by companies such as Tesla, are becoming huge drivers for the market. According to GTM, the price of lithium-ion batteries has dropped by an average of 23% every year since 2010. By 2020, prices will drop to $250-300/kWh.

In 2015, the photovoltaic power generation market scale (installation scale) with batteries installed was 22MW, and it is expected to expand to 769MW in 2020. In 2020, the sales of the "photovoltaic power generation + storage battery market" will reach 3.1 billion US dollars. In the future, whether the combination of "photovoltaic power generation and storage battery" will set off a revolution in the energy industry will receive much attention.