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About the session
Energy Storage
I will discuss the following points, drawing on the Royal Society study of Large-Scale Electricity Storage (which is available at royalsociety.org/electricity-storage):
• As fossil fuels are phased out, an increasing share of final energy will be provided by electricity. As electricity supply is decarbonised, an increasing fraction will be provided by wind and solar.
• High levels of wind and solar must be complemented by storage, and/or large-scale low-carbon flexible supply. The need for long-term storage, and/or flexible supply, has generally been seriously underestimated, because the periods that were studied were not long enough.
• Nevertheless, long-term storage needs can be met while keeping the average cost of electricity to a reasonable level - but unless markets reward it adequately, long-term storage won’t be built.
• In Great Britain long-term storage would be best be provided by storing hydrogen in solution-mined salt caverns. Other solutions are available in regions without salt deposits.
Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith, Emeritus Professor, University of Oxford
