Renewable energy: deployment and the roles of energy storage

Abstract: Hydro energy still remains the highest RE contributor to electricity generation globally, nevertheless, trends in solar and wind energy has shown increasing investment in RE. Though a decline in investment was observed between 2012 and 2013, yet investment in RE exceeded that of non-RE in the excess of $80 billion dollar. In 2014, investment increased by 16%. As developed countries get saturated with RE technologies, developing countries are now the focus for investment. Wistfully, path dependency problem, lack of adequate infrastructure and policy framework have been highlighted as the major barrier to RE deployment in developing countries. Also, lack of harmonised government agency for RE implementation, incentives and educational gap are the institutional and social barriers. Energy Storage (ES) is being promoted as the “game changer” with capability of smoothening the variability associated with the two RE technologies, wind and solar, with the highest deployment rate. Recent developments are indicative of cost reduction for ES. This paper therefore presents a concise and holistic review of renewable energy (RE) technologies for electricity generation and assess the roles of ES in mitigating intermittency associated with their generation profile