Image by Nicolas Ortega for WSJ

The Battery Is Ready to Power the World

GlidePath CEO Chris McKissack spoke to the Wall Street Journal about the massive opportunity for battery storage to replace uneconomic peakers and thermal generators in a feature on the disruptive potential of lithium ion batteries.

“Developers and utilities are looking at another evolutionary step in the industry: building batteries to harvest and dispatch inexpensive and clean power from wind and solar farms, and not just for a couple of hours after sunset.

That threatens not only peakers, but many traditional power plants financed under the assumption that they would be able to competitively sell electricity at all hours of the day for decades.

Batteries “are right on the precipice of being highly disruptive,” said Chris McKissack, chief executive of GlidePath Power Solutions LLC, an Illinois-based company that builds renewable energy generation. He estimates there are well more than 100 gigawatts of gas- and coal-fired power plants—out of a total 800 gigawatts plants that burn these fuels—that could be immediately rendered uneconomic and unnecessary. “This presents a massive opportunity for battery storage…” Read the full story in the Wall Street Journal

(image by Nicolas Ortega for the Wall Street Journal)