Comparing the Costs of Renewable and

Conventional Energy Sources

February 12, 2015 by Energy Innovation

By Mitch Tobin

You can’t get too far in a discussion about the nation’s electric power sector without running
into the question of costs. How do renewable sources, such as solar and wind, stack up against
fossil fuels, such as coal and natural gas? How much will it cost utilities and ratepayers to
build—and operate—a new power plant?

To illustrate how the various energy technologies compare, we’ve created a set of interactive
dashboards that summarize how much it costs to generate power. The data show that utility-
scale solar and wind installations are now competitive with conventional coal- and gas-fired
power plants. Moreover, wind and solar costs are projected to steeply decline in the years
ahead.

Before delving into the data, it’s worth noting that the number of dollars it takes to build and
operate a power plant is a somewhat narrow definition of costs. It doesn’t, for example,
include what economists call externalities, such as the cost of air pollution or climate change
impacts. With a broader definition of costs, low-carbon technologies would perform even
better than fossil fuels.

Components of levelized cost of energy

Our dashboards present data on what’s known as the levelized cost of energy. In essence, this
analysis offers an apples-to-apples comparison of the costs of financing, building, operating,
and maintaining a power plant. The values are expressed in dollars per megawatt-hour.

One of the most widely used levelized cost studies is conducted by Lazard, an international
financial advisory and asset management firm. Their latest version of the study, version 8,
was released in late 2014. The graphic below summarizes the cost components of 16 different
energy technologies evaluated by Lazard: 10 of them are alternative (which includes mainly
low-carbon, renewable technologies), and six are conventional (which includes fossil fuel
sources and nuclear).

Onshore wind has the lowest average levelized cost in this analysis at $59 per megawatt-hour,
and utility-scale photovoltaic plants weren’t far behind at $79. By comparison, the lowest cost
conventional technologies were gas combined cycle technologies, averaging $74 per
megawatt-hour, and coal plants, averaging $109. These numbers are the average of Lazard’s
low- and high-end estimates (see their study for more about their cost calculations).

Looking across the 16 technology types, the 10 alternative technologies cost an average $147
per megawatt-hour, $18 less than the conventional approaches. “Certain Alternative Energy
generation technologies,” Lazard wrote, “are cost-competitive with conventional generational
technologies under some scenarios.”

By dividing the costs among capital, fuel, and operations and maintenance (O&M), you can
see some dramatic differences among the technologies. Many renewable technologies, such as
wind, solar, and geothermal, may not be cheap to build, but they have no fuel costs once
they’re up and running, and generally have lower O&M costs as well.

Wind and solar costs falling

The levelized cost of some wind and solar technologies has plummeted in recent years. The
graphic below shows that the average cost of onshore wind has fallen from $135 per
megawatt-hour in 2009 to $59 in 2014. That’s a 56 percent drop in five years. The cost of
utility-scale photovoltaic technology has plunged from $359 per megawatt-hour in 2009 to
$79 in 2014, a 78 percent decline. Lazard attributes these falling costs to “material declines in
the pricing of system components (e.g., panels, inverters, racking, turbines, etc.), and dramatic
improvements in efficiency, among other factors.”
Other forms of solar power are expected to get even cheaper in the next few years. The
graphic below shows that rooftop residential solar costs are expected to decline 42 percent
between 2014 and 2017; for commercial and industrial photovoltaic installations, Lazard
forecasts the levelized cost will drop 28 percent over the same period. “More efficient
installation techniques, lower costs of capital and improved supply chains” are the driving
forces behind these projected cost reductions.
Comparing the technologies

A variety of considerations—aside from cost—determine when, where, or how a technology

is used. Although wind and solar are now cost-competitive and offer many health and
environmental advantages over fossil fuels, these are still considered intermittent sources
because the sun isn’t always shining and the wind isn’t always blowing). As a result, wind
and solar are unable to entirely replace the services that certain conventional “baseload’”
sources provide to the system. That said, utilities and power operators are discovering a
multitude of new ways that low-carbon technologies can offer more value to the power grid
across the board.

Transmission is another important issue, especially for power sources that are limited to
certain areas, but it can also allow power plants to serve faraway customers.
FLOW BATTERIES
Robert F. Savinell
Department of Chemical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, OH 44106, USA
(July, 2011)

Renewable
energy
sources,
including
wind and
solar, can
supply a
significant
amount of
electrical
energy in
the United
States and
around the
world.
However,
because of
their
intermittent
nature, the
Fig. 1. Power and energy densities of various energy-storage systems. potential of
these two
energy
sources can be fully exploited only if efficient, safe, cost-effective, and reliable electrical energy-
storage systems are provided. Storage systems will also be critical to improving the robustness and
efficiency of the electrical distribution grid by reducing power surges and balancing the load over
time. Energy-storage technologies suitable for applications involving various power capacities and
storage time (energy capacity) are shown in Figure 1. For very large energy-storage applications,
only pumped-hydro and compressed-gas are cost effective at this time. However, these
technologies are limited by geography, while electrochemical energy-storage devices such as
batteries, flow batteries, fuel cells, and electrochemical capacitors are promising because of their
scalability and versatility. The size (weight and volume) of the device is not as critical for large
scale energy storage as it is for portable and transportation applications. Capacitors have fast sub-
second response times, deep discharge capability, and can deliver high power but for only short
times, so these devices are more suitable for power quality management. Most fuel cells cannot be
reversed electrically efficiently, as discussed below. Consequently, only batteries, both conventional
and flow batteries, have the energy capacities needed for large-scale electrical energy storage.

Conventional and flow batteries

Flow batteries and fuel cells differ from conventional batteries in two main aspects. First, in a
conventional battery, the electro-active materials are stored internally, and the electrodes, at
which the energy conversion reactions occur, are themselves serve as the electrochemical oxidizing
agent and fuel, for example the lead-oxide and lead electrodes in a lead-acid battery. In other
words, the electrodes serve both as a structural component and as the electro-active materials.
The characteristics of the negative and positive electrodes determine both power density (for
example, electrical, transport and catalytic properties of the active material and non-reactive
materials) and energy density (for example, mass of active materials) of the battery. As a battery
converts its chemical energy to electrical energy, electrodes are consumed and undergo significant
physical and chemical changes which affect its electrical performance. In contrast, in a flow battery
the electro-active materials are stored externally and the electrodes serve only as structural
components and passive source/sink of electrons. Second, because of the dual functions of its
electrodes described above, a conventional battery has minimal or no scale-up advantages.
Instead, it can only be scaled-out. That is, if more energy is needed, then more battery modules
with identical components are required. As the amount of electro-active materials increases in a
battery, more current collecting materials, electrolyte, separators, and enclosure materials are also
needed. Consequently, a battery can never approach its theoretical energy density. Increasing the
capacity of a battery almost always increases internal resistances and consequently decreases
power density and efficiency. Furthermore, for multiple hour energy storage, a conventional
battery will require oversizing the power capacity (thus increasing cost) since both energy and
power are coupled to the battery capacity. In contrast, the capacity of a flow battery can be simply
increased by increasing the size of the external storage tanks of the electro-active materials.

Flow battery classifications

A flow battery is an electrochemical device that converts the chemical energy of the electro-active
materials directly to electrical energy, similar to a conventional battery and fuel cell. However, the
electro-active materials in a flow battery are stored mostly externally and are introduced into the
device only during operation. True flow batteries have all the reactants and products of the electro-
active chemicals stored external to the power conversion device. Systems in which all the electro-
active materials are dissolved in a liquid electrolyte are called redox (for reduction/oxidation) flow
batteries. A schematic of a redox flow-battery system is shown in Figure 2 and a single cell
construction is shown in Figure 3. Other true flow batteries might have a gas species (for example,
hydrogen, oxygen, chlorine) and/or liquid species (for example, bromine). Reversible fuel cells like
hydrogen/chlorine and hydrogen/bromine, or even high temperature reversible hydrogen/oxygen
solid oxide fuel cells could be thought of as flow batteries. Systems in which one or more electro-
active components are stored internally are hybrid flow batteries. Examples include the zinc-
bromine and the zinc-chlorine batteries in which zinc is included in the electrode design but
chlorine or bromine can be fed from an external tank. As with conventional batteries, the energy
capacity of these hybrid flow batteries is limited by the amount of electro-active materials that can
be stored within the electrodes of the battery and they have limited scale-up advantages.
Fig. 3. An exploded view of a single redox flow-battery cell.

Fig. 2. Schematic of a redox flow-battery system shown in a discharge mode.


Fig. 4. Schematics representing the
electrochemical reactions in the
iron/chrome redox battery.
Most redox flow batteries consist of two separate
electrolytes, one storing the electro-active materials
for the negative electrode reactions and the other
for the positive electrode reactions. (To prevent
confusion, the negative electrode is the anode and
the positive electrode is the cathode during
discharge. It is to be noted that these names will be
reversed during charge, while the polarity of the
electrodes, negative/positive, remains unchanged.)
Both the fresh and spent electrolytes may be
circulated and stored in a single storage tank as
shown in Figure 2. An ion selective membrane is
often used to prevent mixing or cross-over of the
electro-active species which results in chemical
short-circuit of electro-active materials. Only the
common counter-ion carrier is allowed to cross the
membrane. Figure 4 shows a simplified drawing of
the electrochemical charging reactions one of the
most commonly suggested redox battery for utility
scale application, the iron/chrome system. During
power generation (discharge of the battery) the
chromium ion oxidizes the iron ion in the solution.
In this system the separator allows passage of a
chloride anion to balance the charge. Details of
these reactions, together with the description of a
number of other possible flow-battery systems are
shown in the Appendix.

A fuel cell might be considered as a type of flow battery in that the power conversion component is
independent of the chemical energy capacity of the device. Most fuel cells involve oxygen at the
positive electrode, and cannot be reversed electrically efficiently, and consequently cannot be used
effectively as an electrical energy-storage device. The exception might be a high temperature solid
oxide fuel cell.

Advantages and disadvantages

With the electrolyte and electro-active materials stored externally, true flow batteries have many
advantages, one of which is the separation of the power and energy requirements. The electrodes,
not being part of the electro-active materials, can be designed to have optimal power acceptance
and delivery properties (for example, electrical, transport, and catalytic) without the need to also
maximize energy-storage density. Furthermore, the electrodes do not undergo physical and
chemical changes during operation (because they do not contain active materials), thus leading to
more stable and durable performance. Therefore, engineered microstructures developed to
optimize performance can be maintained over the lifetime of the device. With longer life times, the
capital cost of the battery system can be amortized over a longer period, thus reducing the cost of
the energy-storage device. A wider state of charge operating window possible with the redox
batteries reduces the quantity of electro-active material required to deliver power over the entire
required duration of discharge, also reducing cost further.

The energy-capacity requirement of a flow battery is determined by the size of the external storage
components. Consequently, a redox flow-battery system could approach its theoretical energy
density as the system is scaled up to a point where the weight or volume of the battery is small
relative to that of the stored fuel and oxidant. An analogous, but conventional system is the
internal combustion engine system, in which the power is determined by the size of the engine and
the energy capacity is determined by the size of the fuel tank.

A flow battery has a safety advantage that comes from storing the active materials separately from
the reactive point source. Other advantages are quick response times (common to all battery
systems), high electricity-to-electricity conversion efficiency, no cell-to-cell equalization
requirement, simple state-of-charge indication (based on electro-active concentrations), low
maintenance, tolerance to overcharge and over-discharge, and perhaps most importantly, the
tolerance for deep discharges without affecting cycle life. The hybrid systems like those involving
zinc plating do not offer all these advantages, but still have many of the desirable features of a true
flow battery. The main disadvantage of flow batteries is their more complicated system
requirements of pumps, sensors, flow and power management, and secondary containment
vessels, making them most suitable for large-scale storage applications.

The cost of an energy-storage device is a major impediment to utility adoption. For example, in the
vanadium flow-battery system, one of the few redox flow batteries that have been tested at the
utility scale, vanadium itself is a significant cost contributor. Analysis suggests that the cost of
vanadium chemicals varies widely, but could contribute between $50/kWh to $110/kWh, or from
50-100% of the cost target of $100-$200/kWh for the energy-storage system. From this
standpoint, identifying low cost redox couples with high solubility is critical to meeting market
requirements.

The other key cost factor is the construction of the electrochemical cell itself. The construction cost
of the cell scales with the total power requirement of the application, but these costs are directly
related to the specific power of the device itself - how effectively the rates of the materials are
utilized. While flow batteries ought to be able to operate at relatively high current densities, as
convection can be employed to deliver reactants to the electrode surface, flow batteries have
typically been operated at ~50 mA/cm2, a current density consistent with conventional batteries
without convection. It is anticipated that electrolyte management and cell design can deliver at
least 5- to 10-fold improvement in power density, thereby reducing the stack cost.

Future directions

Only a few flow-battery systems have seen deployment. Consequently, the technologies are
relatively new and unfamiliar. Overall, the primary barriers to commercialization for large scale
energy storage are round trip energy-storage efficiency, cost for energy storage in terms of $/kWh,
and cost for the power capacity in terms of $/kW. Further development will require research and
development activities in the following areas.

1. Low-cost, efficient, and durable electrodes; current electrodes are graphite or carbon fiber
felt materials. Enhancing electrocatalytic properties of the fiber surfaces for faster and
more reversible reactions and optimizing structure for transport and current distribution will
improve cell and stack efficiency and increase power density.
2. Chemically stable redox couples, having large potential differences, with high solubilities of
both oxidized and reduced species, and fast redox kinetics; approaches with non-aqueous
electrolytes offer for the possibility of higher cell voltage couples for greater energy and
power density.
3. Highly permselective and durable membranes; in many redox batteries the membrane is
based on costly perfluorinated polymer material. Lower cost non-perfluorinated materials
might be appropriate for redox battery applications because of the milder operating
conditions as compared to fuel cells. In some applications, even lower cost micro-porous
separator materials might work as well. Besides low cost, high performance will require
high conductivity and selectivity of desired ion transport to minimize reactant crossover.
 4. Electrode structure and cell design that minimize transport losses, improve efficiency, and
reduce cost; advances in fuel cell designs during the past two decades may find
applications here to uniformly distribute electrolyte within the cell. Also, advances in bi-
polar plate material, spacer/sealing material, and stack fabrication cost reduction of recent
fuel cell advances will be useful here.
5. Designs with minimal pumping and shunt current losses; because of liquid electrolytes,
these types of losses become even more significant for stacks with large numbers of cells.
6. Large scale power and system management and grid integration. Understanding impedance
matches, transient response times, ac-dc-ac conversion, etc. are required to deploy
electrical energy storage technologies into utility applications.

Appendix

Table I shows some of the more well-known flow-

battery systems.

Both the fresh and spent electrolytes may be circulated

and stored in a single storage tank as shown in Figure
2, or in separate tanks to control the concentrations of
the electro-active material. An ion selective membrane
is often used to prevent mixing or cross-over of the
electro-active species which results in chemical short-
circuit of electro-active materials. Only the common
counter ion carrier is allowed to cross the membrane.
For example, in the bromine-polysulfide system, as
Na2S2 is converted to Na2S4 at the negative electrode
and Br2 is converted to 2Br- at the positive electrode,
the excess Na+ ions at the negative electrode are
allowed to cross to the positive electrode to maintain
electroneutrality. Figure 4 and 5 show a simplified
drawing of the electrochemical reactions for two
common redox flow-battery couples; the iron/chrome
system and the all vanadium system. In the
iron/chrome system the separator allows passage of an
anion to balance the charge. This system was one of the
earlier flow-battery chemistries studied for utility scale
Fig. 5. Schematics representing the
application. In the vanadium system, as V+2 is oxidized
electrochemical reactions in the all to V+3 at the negative electrode and V+5 is reduced to
vanadium redox battery. V+4 at the positive electrode, hydronium ions are
transported across a proton conducting membrane from
the negative electrode to the positive electrode. In this
case, however sometimes a microporous non-selective membrane separator can be used since
most of the current might be carried by high mobility protons in the acid electrolyte and since the
cross-over of the common vanadium cation lowers efficiency but does not cause a permanent loss
of capacity.

Table I. Characteristics of some flow-battery systems

 Reactions
Electrolyte
System top: negative; bottom: positive electrode Eocell
-/+ electrode
charge: <== ; discharge: ==>

ox

V2+ <==> V3+ + e-

All vanadium 1.4 V H2SO4/H2SO4
VO2+ + e- <==> VO2+

V2+ <==> V3+ + e-

nadium-polyhalide 1.3 V VCl3-HCl/NaBr-HCl
½Br2 + e- <==> Br-

2S22- <==> S42- + 2e-

romine-polysulfide 1.5 V NaS2/NaBr
Br2 + 2e- <==> 2Br-

Fe2+ <==> Fe3+ + e- HCl-FeCl2-CrCl3

Iron-chromium 1.2 V
Cr3+ + e- <==> Cr2+ (both sides)

H2 <==> 2H+ + 2e-

ydrogen-bromine 1.1 V HBr-PEM*
Br2 + 2e- <==> 2Br-

rid

Zn <==> Zn2+ + 2e-

Zinc-bromine 1.8 V ZnBr2/ZnBr2
Br2 + 2e- <==> 2Br-

Zn <==> Zn2+ + 2e- CH3SO3H

Zinc-cerium 2.4 V
2Ce4+ + 2e- <==> 2Ce3+ (both sides)

oton exchange membrane

 Comparing Different Methods for Electrical Energy
Storage

Images via ESA (ht NBF)

The Electricity Storage Association provides a useful comparison for different methods for
electrical energy storage (via Brian Wang). One significant omission from the list is "Cryonic
Energy Storage," which may prove to be the best of the current crop of contenders for
now, until "flow batteries" are perfected.

Large -scale stationary applications of electric energy storage can be divided in three
major functional categories:

Power Quality. Stored energy, in these applications, is only applied for seconds or less, as
needed, to assure continuity of quality power.

Bridging Power. Stored energy, in these applications, is used for seconds to minutes to
assure continuity of service when switching from one source of energy generation to
another.
Energy Management. Storage media, in these applications, is used to decouple the timing
of generation and consumption of electric energy. A typical application is load leveling,
which involves the charging of storage when energy cost is low and utilization as needed.
This would also enable consumers to be grid-independent for many hours.

Although some storage technologies can function in all application ranges, most options
would not be economical to be applied in all three functional categories.

... _ESA

More graphic comparisons from ESA below:

 Read the entire ESA comparison sheet for more information.

Cryonic energy storage has far more potential than compressed air storage, given the
phase change energies involved.

Among electric battery storage methods, flow cell batteries are most scalable and
versatile in application. Newer approaches to flow cells using more viscous electrolyte
media should allow the technology to be used in vehicular power storage applications.
ABB launches 150-350 kW DC fast charger
Posted October 5, 2017 by Charles Morris & filed under Newswire, The Infrastructure.

Electronics giant ABB’s new Terra HP High Power Charge system is designed for use at
highway rest stops and gas stations. Terra HP’s ultra-high current has the capacity to charge
both 400 V and 800 V cars at full power.

The 375 A single power cabinet can charge a 400 V car at 150 kW continuously. Dynamic DC
power sharing allows a two-power cabinet charging system to charge a pair of EVs
simultaneously, at up to 350 kW and 500 A, while dynamically optimizing the available grid
connection. Additional power cabinets and charge posts can be added after installation.

Terra HP features individually cooled charging cables and redundant power and
communication connections. ABB Ability Connected Services facilitates the connection of
chargers to back offices, payment platforms and smart grid systems, and provides remote
diagnostics and over-the-air software updates.
New tap to charge feature makes charging simpler than
ever
Posted October 2, 2017 by Charles Morris & filed under Newswire, The Infrastructure.

Charging your EV is now as simple as tapping an iPhone, Android phone or Apple Watch on
any ChargePoint charger. The new “tap to charge” feature works at more than 40,000
ChargePoint charging spots across North America.

To use tap to charge, drivers with Android version 4.4 or higher enable NFC, log in to the
ChargePoint app, and tap their phone on the station to charge. Drivers with iPhone 6 or
higher or Apple Watch create a ChargePoint Pass, then place their finger on Touch ID and
tap the phone on the station. Apple Watch users just double-click the side button and hold
the watch near the contactless reader.

“ChargePoint is committed to getting every driver behind the wheel of an EV, and a major
part of achieving that goal is making it as easy as possible for drivers to charge,” said
ChargePoint Chief Marketing Officer Colleen Jansen. “Features like tap to charge make
fueling your EV much more simple and convenient than the gas vehicle it likely replaced.”
Search for:

Johnson Matthey to invest $270 million in battery material

technology
Posted October 3, 2017 by Charles Morris & filed under Newswire, The Tech.

Specialty chemicals company Johnson Matthey plans to invest $270 million to build
production capacity for high-energy battery materials.

Johnson Matthey first entered the Li-ion battery market in 2012, and is focusing on a broad
portfolio of cathode materials to support a range of electrified vehicle applications. It has
strategic partnerships with cell manufacturers and automotive OEMs.

Johnson Matthey has IP across a range of battery materials, including LNO, NMC and LFP.
The company says its eLNO represents a step change in energy density compared to NMC
and NCA materials.

“We are world class chemists,” said Chief Executive Robert MacLeod. “We have the
expertise to solve our customers’ complex and increasingly challenging problems by scaling
up fundamental chemistry to provide commercial solutions which drive our growth. This will
create value and a cleaner and healthier world.”