Battery Storage

Lecture 1

Battery storage and renewable energy

Slides

• Batteries arbitrage price differences between high and low demand periods. This increases prices when they store energy (buy power) and decreases prices when they discharge energy (sell power).
  • Is this good for consumers? Producers?
• The main factor limiting renewables today is not average cost (LCOE) but intermittency and alignment with the grid.
• Batteries can help with this in theory. We study the conditions underwhich batteries, operating as arbitragers, are good for renewables.

Pre-class

• Watch this short video on battery arbitrage (LINK FIXED).
• Then read this article from the Wall Street Journal on the battery storage boom.

Post-class

• Do this practice problem.
  • Solutions are here.

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Additional material

• Video on the solar “duck curve”
• Listen to this Planet Money Episode “The World’s Biggest Battery”