A source of clean dispatchable power will “absolutely necessary” if the electricity system is to be completely decarbonised by 2050, analysts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) have warned.
Wind, solar and batteries are rapidly falling in price but will be unable to meet our electricity needs by themselves.
Laying out the findings from its New Energy Outlook for 2019, BNEF head of energy economics Elena Giannakopoulou said batteries cannot store electricity for long enough to keep the lights on during the inevitable periods of low solar and wind output. An alternative source of backup power is therefore required.
“This technology X needs to be able to ramp up quickly and the capacity factors it will experience won’t be higher than 25 per cent,” she explained. “This is a technology which looks like a gas peaker plant but without the emissions”.
Candidates for ‘technology X’
Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Note: LCOE = levelised cost of energy
Giannakopoulou said there are a number of potential candidates at various stage of development, including biogas peaking plants, hydrogen fuel cells and coal and gas power stations fitted with carbon capture and storage.
But she said it is too early to start picking winners: “We need to keep deploying solar and wind and batteries – technologies that are getting cheaper and cheaper and cheaper – and at the same time worry about the next phase.”