The great run of US natural gas faces storage challenge
Further growth in the consumption of natural gas will need to overcome the trend for renewables paired with power grid storage
Natural gas in US power generation has been on a spectacular ten-year run. But this growth has not helped the price much as North America has colossal reserves of recoverable gas. US gas-fired power output grew by 63.6pc between 2010 and 2020, and built for itself a large and newly installed infrastructure base. Presumably, that investment will protect the fuel's position in the years ahead. But one technology could severely disrupt that expectation—grid-level storage. Battery storage not only threatens the niche gas peaker market, but also threatens to cut off growth of further natural gas plants more generally Mentioned as an afterthought in a recent EIA summary of the past year in
Also in this section
5 December 2024
Completion of phase-one construction expected in 2027 as technology providers SLB and Linde take equity stakes in one of world’s largest CCS projects
5 December 2024
The new edition of Outlook, our annual publication about the year ahead for energy, produced in association with White & Case, is available now
27 November 2024
The agreement by the parties to raise at least $300b/yr for developing countries by 2035 was derided as a betrayal by the Global South, but the UN urged pragmatism
26 November 2024
Agreements on how to operationalise both Article 6.2 and 6.4 will mean countries can start to trade emissions reductions as part of their contributions to the Paris Agreement
