AI 中文总结
本文从平准成本角度对比储能与工业、数据中心负荷转移的成本，发现电池在短周期转移中具竞争力，但季节性灵活性成本是铝冶炼负荷转移的80倍以上，需求灵活性的必要性取决于时间尺度、负荷及容量类型。
AI 中文摘要
储能和柔性负荷都有助于平衡高比例可变可再生能源的电力系统，但二者作用方式不同：电池将电力从一个时段转移到另一个时段，而工厂或数据中心则在满足产品或服务需求的前提下转移生产或计算活动。随着电池成本降低，人们自然会问是否还需要需求灵活性。许多评估将可控负荷视为已可用，重点关注其启用或参与成本；但对于通常接近满负荷运行的大型负荷，转移电力使用可能需要额外设备、延迟销售、占用营运资金并扰乱生产过程。本文从平准成本角度比较储能技术与工业及数据中心负荷转移的成本，衡量柔性运行相对于基准运行的增量成本。研究发现，随着柔性时段延长、资产循环频率降低，储能每转移一千瓦时的成本会上升；而在固定避峰时段占比下，负荷转移不会出现这种容量成本上升，但新增生产容量可能仍过高而无法证明其合理性。在代表性的核心技术成本下，电池在短周期转移中具有竞争力，但在提供季节性灵活性时，其成本是铝冶炼负荷转移的80倍以上。因此，答案取决于时间尺度、负荷类型以及所需容量是新增还是已投入的沉没成本。
英文摘要
Energy storage and flexible loads both help balance power systems with high shares of variable renewables, but they do so differently. A battery moves electricity from one period to another. A factory or data center instead moves production or computing activity, while meeting demand for its product or service. As batteries become cheaper, it is natural to ask whether demand flexibility is still needed. Many assessments treat that controllable load as already available and focus on enabling or participation costs. For a large load that normally runs near full capacity, however, shifting electricity use can require extra equipment, delay sales, tie up working capital, and disrupt the process. Here, we compare energy storage technologies with industrial and data-center load shifting on a levelized cost basis, measuring the incremental cost of flexible relative to baseline operation. We find that energy storage becomes more expensive per shifted kilowatt-hour as the flexibility period lengthens and assets are cycled less often. Load shifting does not share that rise in capacity cost under a fixed avoided-hour share, but new productive capacity can still be too expensive to justify. Under representative central technology costs, batteries compete well for short-cycle shifting but are more than 80 times more expensive than load shifting of aluminum smelting when providing seasonal flexibility. The answer therefore depends on the timescale, the load, and whether the needed capacity is new or already sunk.
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