With greenhouse gas emissions rising more quickly than ever, It is clear we need to act fast to avoid a planetary ecosystem breakdown. And the threats we face are so big that only big actions will work.
This is why initiatives such as Breakthrough Energy Ventures, funded by tech billionaire Bill Gates, are targeting transformational concepts. Breakthrough, for example, only invests in technologies with the potential to eliminate at least half a gigaton of greenhouse gas emissions a year.
Its portfolio includes investments in companies devoted to advanced geothermal and fusion energy—long shots that could in theory provide clean power around the world sometime in the future. Assuming they are viable, such concepts will require significant levels of investment to achieve commercialization.
Increasingly, though, the problem they face is not money… but time. Solar power, which is the fastest-growing source of electricity in history, has only managed to cover 7% of demand worldwide in the 12 years or so that it has been commercially mature.
Assuming continued rampant growth, solar power might be able to cover half of global demand by 2050—although DNV’s 2023 Pathway to Net Zero Emissions forecasts a more modest 37%. The point is that even solar is taking decades to make a truly meaningful contribution to decarbonization.
Thus, it is becoming unrealistic to expect any technology that has yet to achieve commercialization to scale quickly enough to make a difference to a net zero target 25 years away. And waiting for such a technology could be catastrophic as a worsening climate threatens capitalism with destruction.
Instead, it is increasingly clear society must double down on mature, scalable clean technologies such as solar energy and wind power. The problem with these, of course, is their intermittency. Critics frequently point to what might happen if there is insufficient wind and solar power to meet demand.
Ensuring overproduction isn't wasted
This can in theory be managed through overcapacity—after all, a variable renewable energy system operating at just 1% of its capacity could still meet grid demand if its total potential were 100 times larger than the maximum load.
Such a scenario is not viable in practice, of course, because of the cost and time involved in massively overbuilding renewable infrastructure to always cover demand.
Because of this, rather than focusing on what happens when there is not enough variable renewable energy it is worth asking what happens when there is too much—and how the excess can be taken advantage of.
Germany, for example, curtailed 19 TWh of renewable energy in 2023, equivalent to around 4% of annual generation (although the actual amount may be higher as the country has been known to curtail output from wind farms in neighbouring countries during periods of overproduction).
Even 4% is a lot at a time when renewable energy needs to replace fossil fuels as quickly as possible. Ensuring overproduction does not go to waste should be a priority for policymakers, and it can be achieved in two ways. One is to ship excesses to regions where demand outstrips production.
This requires investments in grid infrastructure, which are already underway in many regions around the world. But grid upgrades are costly and take time. The other route is to store overproduction and use it later, when demand outstrips supply. Thanks to the rapidly falling cost of lithium-ion batteries, this is a quick and easy option.
Installed proportionally alongside a scale up of variable renewable energy sources, battery storage can help minimize the need for overcapacity and ensure that every electron of solar and wind production replaces fossil fuels, helping to cut emissions as quickly and efficiently as possible.
This approach also has a hidden benefit for nature. While the decarbonization that will arise from widespread use of intermittent variable renewables will help to preserve global ecosystems, it is also true that wind and solar technologies have an environmental impact.
Technology evolution is already helping to minimize this, with larger, more efficient wind turbines, for example, reducing the number of machines needed per project.
Energy storage can further improve matters by minimizing the need for overcapacity—and battery projects themselves are environmentally benign, occupying relatively little space and posing next to no threats to wildlife.
Good news for consumers
Furthermore, responsible developers such as Pacific Green are committed to applying environmentally friendly development practices to projects.
The Richborough and Sheaf energy parks, for instance, are helping cut carbon by record levels and at the same time adhere to the UK’s mandatory biodiversity net gain policy, which requires developers to improve local habitats by at least 10% as part of project development plans.
In the case of Sheaf, the project includes the removal of contaminated landfill left by a former thermal power station on the site, plus the rewilding of 10,000m2 of land to achieve a net biodiversity gain of almost 15%. And all this is on top of the financial benefits that energy storage can deliver.
Solar and wind power have zero marginal costs, which is why they outcompete other forms of electricity generation in many parts of the world. By increasing the amount of wind and solar generation that can enter the system, without the need for expensive grid upgrades, battery storage helps to cut the average cost of electricity.
This is good news for consumers and can also help to drive industrial competitiveness for industries that are able to run their processes with grid supplies or commercial power purchase agreements. The fact that this can be achieved while doing good for the planet means the choice to install more battery capacity should come naturally.
Publish date: 30 April, 2025