In recent years, there has been an uptick in demand for sustainability and Environmental, Social, Governance reporting from investors, stakeholders and customers. Reports like the Carbon Disclosure Project have standardized metrics and made reports more transparent for the industry. With annual data, companies can trend their emissions and promote reductions to investors.
One of the goals of wind and solar project is to displace fossil burning units with clean-emission free technology. This clean generation effectively displaces at least some of emissions from fossil fired units that would have been needed if not for the renewable project. Models like EPA’s AVERT tool estimate the reduction in emissions from projects based on regional displaced generation.
As the grid transitions to more renewable and distributed generation, batteries are needed to fill the load gap. These large mega-watt sized batteries will charge on the grid and wait to discharge until they are needed. Economically, this means charging using the most cost effective power sources and discharging when kilo-watt prices are high.
In theory, batteries would result in a reduction in overall emissions by displacing inefficient, high carbon units. In practice, the emission profile depends on the emission profile baseload units used to charge. This paper will focus on a review of EPA forecast generation data and how it can be used to estimate the emission reduction of a battery project.
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