A recent article by Trevor Wills has reflected on the needs for big batteries saving the Grid. His company Pulse Clean Energy is involved in this directions.
Several problems are sigbificant:
The Grid is near blackout when we depend too much on Wind/Solar
Battery products are increasing at 20%/year but this is not enough
There are technical challenges plus finance problems and human issues
This last is about fires in Lithium batteries, 3 each day in UK and some can be explosive. This is top of the action list. But other objectives like jobs, low-cost energy and security are necessary. Why is Britain the most expensive when 50% of our generation is the cheapest ever. Someone is getting it wrong. Or profiteering.
Perhaps the most important issue is the failure of the grid to accept green generation. In 2024 1700 applications to grid connect were attempted but it has not been successful.The power in the queue went up by a factor 2 to 700GW. Absurd.
New jobs are neede in this high skill sector. It is estimated that several hundred thousand new people are needed by 2050.
Construction, Design, Operating the new infrastructure are vital. Present supply of new young people is poor. None of the Universities have reacted to this.
Ofgem and Neso are awful and fixed in the past.
An unusual issue in 2024 was negative priced electricity. This should incentivise new suppliers of batteries.
Yet the article does not mention that Hydrogen beats Lithium batteries by a factor 10. This should be emphasised and big changes in policy activated.