The world’s first commercial-scale advanced compressed air energy storage (A-CAES) plant is in Ontario. Image: Hydrostor.
When we talk about decarbonising Canadian electricity, we tend to focus on how it’s generated. How can we cost effectively expand hydropower capacity? Where are solar panels and wind turbines best located? How can we fully capture the potential of new fuels such as hydrogen and ammonia?
All vital questions, to be sure.
But no matter how effectively we develop our green generation options, we’re likely to fall short of our net-zero carbon ambition unless we knit the whole system together – and incorporate the ability to even out the variations in supply and demand – through a large-scale build-out of diverse forms of energy storage.
For the first time the scope of that build-out has been quantified, in a report recently commissioned by Energy Storage Canada. The report provides an estimate of the installed capacity of energy storage required, province by province, to optimally supplement green electricity sources and carry Canada over the net zero finish line.
And it’s a significant amount – in the range of 8 to 12 gigawatts nationally by 2035. Even at the low-end, that’s equivalent to Manitoba’s entire installed generating capacity as of 2020.
And while energy storage is already on a healthy growth trajectory with recent announcements in Ontario and Nova Scotia, national installed capacity today is less than 1 gigawatt, meaning we have a big gap to close.
But we need to close it if we are going to successfully realise the dual imperatives of meeting more of our energy end-use needs with electricity, and of enlarging the proportion of that electricity that comes from renewables and other non-emitting resources. Energy Storage - link - Justin Rangooni - link - more like this (storage) - link - more like this (Canada) - link
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