As reliance on solar and wind energy resources grows, additional technologies will be needed to ensure that energy demand is met reliably. These technologies include energy storage, backup generation, demand-side management, and transmission expansion. I will describe my recent research that identifies strategies to improve energy storage and demand-side management. First, using multi-decade weather data and parsimonious models, we evaluate energy systems that combine variable renewable resources with storage. We identify key drivers of system cost, along with features of storage technologies that can enable cost-competitive generation of electricity. Second, we investigate the improvement of lithium-ion batteries to identify factors that enabled their success, and inform strategies for the future. We build extensive empirical datasets and develop models of technological change to elucidate the drivers of the rapid improvement observed for lithium-ion batteries. We then disentangle and quantify the contributions to cost change of low-level mechanisms, such as increases in cell charge density, and high-level mechanisms, such as economies of scale. Third, we characterize the size and dynamics of fluctuations in solar and wind resources to determine how technologies beyond energy storage could ease the adoption of renewable resources and increase utilization of electricity infrastructure. This research can inform engineering strategies, as well as financial investments and public policies, that aim to improve a range of sustainable technologies.
Dr. Micah S. Ziegler is an assistant professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Ziegler evaluates sustainable energy and chemical technologies, their impact, and their potential. His research helps to shape robust strategies to accelerate the improvement and deployment of technologies that can enable a global transition to sustainable and equitable energy systems. His work informs research and development, public policy, and financial investment. Dr. Ziegler conducted postdoctoral research in energy systems and technological change at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.S. in Chemistry from Yale University. In addition, he worked in the Climate and Energy Program at the World Resources Institute and was a Luce Scholar assigned to the Business Environment Council in Hong Kong. Dr. Ziegler is a member of AIChE and ACS, and serves on the steering committee of Macro-Energy Systems. His research findings have been highlighted in media including The New York Times, Nature, The Economist, National Geographic, BBC Newshour, NPR, and ABC News.