EU Clean Energy Transition: Perspectives and Challenges for Energy Storage

Europe is facing the major challenge of implementing the energy transition to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, as adopted by the European Green Deal in December 2019. The future energy grid has to be flexible enough to accommodate higher shares of variable renewable generation such as solar and wind power in a secure way. Hence, the development and integration of affordable as well as sustainable energy storage capacity gets crucial for the clean energy transition.

What are the socio-economic energy storage expectations by 2030/2050 and what opportunities and challenges, including on access and affordability, does it imply for consumers? What are the industry plans for the future energy system with a focus on storage (mid and long-term)? How can research contribute to make storage resources more affordable? What R&I priorities, gaps and models of industry-research collaboration that can be shared and replicated in other EU countries and contexts in the batteries sector? How can StoRIES services enhance the innovation uptake? These are some of the questions the workshop addressed.

This workshop, jointly organised by StoRIES, Joint Programme for Energy Storage (EERA) and SUPEERA project, was a timely opportunity for bringing together researchers, industry, end-users, policymakers and other stakeholders. The goal was to exchange views on key issues for the storage sector and discuss possible future scenarios of the energy system.

The recordings of the event can be found here:  

https://us06web.zoom.us/rec/share/BcmlVcDbIo4VfNTGw6nQqRV5nKNtE4ofm1FqtO5Tx7XeCPvj7JEjL1pdAyyUEKKf.rc8tEgY1mf8NyOqG

The report will follow shortly. 

Speakers: 

Myriam E. Gil Bardají is a Senior Research Manager at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. She has been working in the field of energy storage since more than 15 years. She is contributing author of the Join EASE/EERA Energy Storage Technology Development Roadmap (2017) and the mission-oriented Study on Energy Storage to speed up the Energy Transition (2018). Since 2015 as manager of the EERA JP on Energy Storage she is coordinating the strategic activities of the programme and she is deputy coordinator of recently granted StoRIES project. This project is aiming at creating an energy storage eco-system for innovation in the upcoming years

More at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/myriam-e-gil-bardaji-phd-a43278148/

Gonzalo FERNANDEZ COSTA is policy officer on energy security and electricity at the European Commission, DG Energy. Prior to joining the Commission, he was head of service in the electricity department of the Ministry for Ecological Transition in Spain. He is an industrial engineer with a major in electricity from the Technical University of Madrid (UPM).

Marco Ferraro is a senior research, Project Manager, and expert on electrochemical systems for generation and storage of energy. CNR representative in EERA JP Energy Storage (Deputy of SP6 - Energy Storage: Technoeconomics and Sustainability). Leader of the WP 4 “Support a fair transition towards climate neutrality” of the STORIES EU Project. Co-editor (as EERA representative) of the European Clean Energy Transition Partnership Strategic Research Innovation Agenda and contributing author of the White Paper on the Clean Energy Transition, European Energy Research Alliance (2021).

More at: linkedin.com/in/marco-ferraro-13874519

Dr. Bloemendal is assistant professor Underground Thermal Energy Storage (UTES) at Delft University of Technology and senior research UTES at KWR water research. The combination KWR-TU Delft allows dr. Bloemendal to develop proof of concept of new ideas at the university and subsequently implement these in pilot projects with industry in KWR projects (bridging science to practice). Dr. Bloemendal is a leading expert in the field of heat storage in the subsurface.

More at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-bloemendal-a8a6421/

Jan Willem Langeraar is a system engineer, TU Delft. Over 20 years active in the renewable energy sector. Started as consultant at Ecofys, several years project development at Evelop. Started business for Econcern in Africa. Joint founder of HYGRO in 2016. JW Langeraar role in HYGRO is business development and technology assessment. HYGRO develops projects in which it creates synergy between wind, direct electrolysis, and pipelines. HYGRO has performed several system integration studies (eg in 2017 with TNO “wind to wheel”). Now involved in 2^nd phase SBIR study with Giner, NREL & GE. As partner of Giner HYGRO models in this 2^nd phase, the integral design and performance for floating offshore wind farm.

More at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jwlangeraar/

and https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jwlangeraar_greendeal-eugreendeal-hydrogeneconomy-activity-6861674926659710976-83ho

Giacomo Alessandri has a MsC in Mechanical Engineering at University of Perugia and is a R&D project manager in the wave energy sector. He is skilled in design of mechanical components and machines, testing either in laboratory and sea environment. Co-author in publications related to electro-mechanical systems on energy extraction from marine energy sources.

More at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/giacomo-alessandri-630598109/

Dr Philippe Stevens has 35 years of experience as a research scientist and engineer in electrochemical systems including fuel cells, hydrogen production, batteries and redox-flow systems at Oxford University, the CEA and EDF R&D. He is the holder of a French Science Academy medal and has filed 27patents. He oversees new battery technologies at the R&D division of EDF and is a senior expert on the topic for the EDF group. He is also co-chair of the New and Emerging Technologies Working Group of “Batterie Europe”.

From 2020 onwards, Ariel Liebman has been Director of the Monash Energy Institute and leads the RACE for
Networks Program in the Reliable Affordable Clean Energy (RACE) for 2030 CRC. The RACE for
Networks Program optimises Australia’s electricity grid through customer engagement, distributed
energy resources and network integration. This includes a holistic approach where customers are
empowered to engage effectively with networks.
Ariel’s current research in the Energy sector focuses on optimization and ML-based decision support
tools for the operation and planning of smart grids, microgrids and large-scale energy systems.

More at: (21) Ariel Liebman | LinkedIn

Dr. Kourosh Malek is a division head for artificial materials intelligence at IEK-13, leading the establishment of a newly founded simulation and data science lab for energy materials (SDL-EM) at Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH. Prior to joining Forschungszentrum Jülich, he has been a program technical lead for the Energy Storage Program at the National Research Council in Vancouver, Canada. He has led activities around Canadian Energy Storage Roadmap and techno-economic assessment for grid-scale energy storage technologies, including managing several major projects to monitor and assess existing and future publicly funded grid-storage demonstration projects across Canada. He holds PhD and MBA, specialized in the management of technology, and has led development of several analysis tools and practical frameworks for assessing technology readiness, market evaluation, early commercialization, socio-economic, and environmental impacts of adopting advanced clean energy technologies.

Dr Olli Salmi is the Director of EIT RawMaterials Baltic Sea Innovation Hub, leads the Materials for Energy Storage and Conversion Cluster at the European Raw Materials Alliance, and co-chairs the ETIP Batteries Europe Raw Materials and Recycling Working Group. Dr Salmi has 20 years of experience on leadership, innovation management and capacity building in the mineral sector as well as in planning and design. Prior to joining EIT RawMaterials, Dr Salmi has worked as Research Professor at VTT Technological Research Centre of Finland and as CTO of EPECC Ltd.

More at: (21) Olli Salmi | LinkedIn

Christian Breyer is Professor for Solar Economy at LUT University, Finland. His major expertise is the integrated research of technological and economic characteristics of renewable energy systems specialising in energy system modeling for 100% renewable energy, on a local but also global scale. Publications cover integrated sector analyses with power, heat, transport, desalination, industry.

More at: https://fi.linkedin.com/in/christian-breyer-ba91b686

Mónica de Juan González is a Project Manager at the European Energy Research Alliance, and she is actively contributing to the execution of several H2020 projects, including SUPEERA and StoRIES projects.

She holds a Master’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Salamanca, specialised in the hydrogen production. She worked for more than 10 years in the preparation and management of relevant projects and proposals within an EU funding consultancy in a wide range of sectors, such as energy, chemistry, renewable energies, and circular economy. She joined EERA in 2020 and has been focusing on coordinating the SUPEERA activities to facilitate the execution of the SET-Plan in the broader context of the Clean Energy Transition to support Europe’s strategic long-term vision - a Clean Planet for all.

More at: (21) Mónica de Juan González | LinkedIn

Dr. Olga Sumińska-Ebersoldt is a physicist with background in atmospheric chemistry and physics. Since 2019, she is responsible for the contribution of the research community to the Implementation Working Group Deep Geothermal and is a manager of the EERA JP on Energy Storage. In December 2020, she joined the project development and coordination at KIT-HIU and is part of the StoRIES coordination team. 

More at: linkedin.com/in/olga-sumińska-ebersoldt-8271a0167