How Much Energy Storage can We Afford? On the Need for a Sunflower Society, Aligning Demand with Renewable Supply

Harald Desing () and Rolf Widmer
Additional contact information
Harald Desing: Empa - Swiss Federal Laboratories for Material Science and Technology
Rolf Widmer: Empa - Swiss Federal Laboratories for Material Science and Technology

Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, 2022, vol. 7, issue 2, 1-15

Abstract: Abstract The worsening climate crisis impels society to accelerate climate action. The attainable speed of the energy transition is ultimately limited by the available energy to build the replacing renewable infrastructures. Decarbonizing the energy system by replacing dispatchable fossil with variable renewable power requires energy storage to match supply with demand. Current storage technologies are energetically expensive to build and operate, thus the demand for storage shapes the fastest possible transition and the probability to exceed 1.5 °C heating. This study explores and quantifies the effect of demanded storage and its technological progress on the fastest possible transition constrained only by energy. The simulation results using three exemplary storage technologies show that storage substantially delays the transition and increases the probability to exceed 1.5 °C heating. Technological progress, if materialized fast, can reduce energy costs of storage; however, storage demand remains a critical driver for climate risks. Consequently, minimizing storage demand through a supply-driven power system effectively reduces climate risks—a paradigm shift towards a solar-aligned “sunflower society”.

Keywords: Energy transition; Energy storage; Climate risks; Climate crisis; Energy demand management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41247-022-00097-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:bioerq:v:7:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s41247-022-00097-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/41247

DOI: 10.1007/s41247-022-00097-y

Access Statistics for this article

Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality is currently edited by C.A.S. Hall and U. Bardi

More articles in Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().