Battery strategies for energy transformation are ripe for disruption

Transmit the power of the sun to where it needs to be.

With the lack of fast returns and the investment risks, battery strategies for energy transformation are ripe for disruption. The company that can lay cables east-west to distribute electricity over large distances will revolutionise energy transformation and be extremely profitable.

Solar power drives electricity prices negative in the middle of the day in autumn and spring on the east coast of Australia. In other words, it costs utilities money for you to generate solar power at these times! Do we need more power on these days at these times ? No.

In the future we will have more solar installations and even more solar energy and there is no question that the price of power in the day time will continue to drop - even in winter and summer.

If power prices are negative during the day, then when can anyone make money from power ? At night.

Anyone who wants to make money from renewables at night needs to invest in batteries. But batteries have some significant technological limitations. For example, they can only discharge once per night and have a limited lifetime of 20 years. Investment in batteries typically take at least 10 years to pay off and  only return 100% profit after 20 years. One example is the Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia where investors spent $170 million for returns of around $18 million per year. The risk is that the financial return changes through that 20 year period.

But what if there was another way to source renewable energy at night? Instead of storing energy, why don't we just transmit it?

There is an abundance of solar power at midday. According to the energy duck curve there is a scarcity of electrical power in the early evening (at 6pm). The power generated at midday needs to be transmitted to the consumers a quarter of the earth away who are in the early evening. The typical distance from midday to early evening is 10,000 km east-west, which is a very long distance to transfer solar power.

The company who solves the problem of low cost (east-west) long distance power distribution will be rewarded greatly.