A detail in Lazard’s latest levelized cost ofstorage(LCOS) report has highlighted a little-known but potentially major issue for the lithium-ion battery industry.
The financial advisory and asset management firm downgraded its estimates for lithium-ion round-trip efficiency to account for parasitic losses, GTM has discovered.
“As more battery systems are deployed, estimates of actual round-trip efficiencies are lower, and installation costs are higher than expected and than reported in last year’s LCOS 2.0,” according to the Lazard study.
“Consequently, estimates for total ‘Commercial’ use case LCOS rose slightly, despite [a] lower equipment cost estimate,” it states.
Lazard’s two previous LCOS studies had simply used the round-trip efficiency of the battery and power electronics since there was little reliable data on the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) requirements of the system, Lazard said.
Experience is beginning to show this parasitic load could be significant. By its LCOS 3.0 study, said Lazard, some published reports and estimates were providing a range of 80 percent to 90 percent round-trip efficiency for entire systems, including the cooling load.
Figures for parasitic loss in lithium-ion battery systems remain notoriously hard to find. “It’s almost impossible to find detailed information on this subject,” said Hugh Sharman, principal at the energy consultancy Incoteco.
HVAC energy consumption levels will also vary between projects as different regions and usage levels require different cooling loads, Lazard noted.
One study of three battery systems in 2014, by experts from EA Technology and Northern Powergrid, hinted that electrical energy storage (EES) losses might be significantly higher than those used by Lazard in its calculations.
“The round-trip efficiencies for the EES systems have been calculated as between 83 percent and 86 percent, falling to between 41 percent and 69 percent where parasitic loads are included,” concluded the study.
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