Energy experts in Australia believe that the country is squandering away
the abundant sunshine it receives each year due to lack of adequate
infrastructure.
Australia boasts of plenty of efficient residential solar panel
installations across suburbs, saving consumers money on future energy bills. However,
these installations also cause large surges in supply during the day followed
by dips of supply at night. This is not an ideal situation for the grid since
it needs to maintain a steady smooth supply across a 24-hour period. Only improved
battery technology allowing much greater storage of produced energy will allow
energy to be supplied in a constant, steady stream.
Many energy companies are limiting the size of solar installations as
there are already large daily surpluses in some areas. For example, in Western
Australia installations above 30 KW/Hr are on a permanent hold right now.
Without a move forward in battery technology and installation, solar is
essentially throttled at current levels.
People are incentivised when installing solar power systems in homes;
however, battery installation will need to be done on a much larger scale with
very little incentive for households to contribute to it. The only reliable way
to construct large cost-efficient energy storage is through large grid
investment and that won’t happen until energy storage is workable in the first
place.
Battery technology has not kept pace with the advances made in solar
panels, which have led to decreased cost and increased efficiency. But things
are looking up for this segment of the renewable energy industry with the
global surge in solar and wind power bringing the issue of energy storage right
to the top of the scientific agenda at research institutions the world over. The
development of improved lithium batteries that utilise the structure of benign
viruses to create more efficient energy storage for electric cars is a good
start.
TCK Solar is a supplier of premium solar panels and solar power systems.
