The costs of adding storage to renewables

A research paper published in Nature, a leading journal,provided economic analysis for equipping renewable power plants with storage. For this purpose, the authors compared renewable energy projects in three different states in the USA (Texas, California, Massachusetts) and included various types of energy storage in their model: different types of batteries, compressed air storage and pumped hydro. The authors had modelled the electric discharge from the respective plant’s storage device (wind or solar) to be sold at the times of the highest demand i.e. highest price. The authors had accounted for various costs of the storage solutions including their energy and power-related costs (you can find the definitions of these costs in Ref2). The authors conclude that, compressed air and pumped hydro storage can increase the value of solar and wind power in Texas and California. Yet, further cost improvement regarding energy storage and generation must be achieved to render those plants profitable without subsidies.