Although huge amounts of capital are being deployed into storage, some investors speaking at the Energy Storage Summit 2022 made it clear that the investment model is still set to evolve hugely. 

Pandemic-related supply chain issues for lithium battery materials hitting the energy storage space are just “bumps in the road” for the sector, and the supply chain will “come out stronger because of it”.

Fluence’s artificial intelligence-driven bidding platform will optimise large-scale wind and solar assets in Australia for Telstra Energy. 

Standalone storage, demand from commercial and industrial (C&I) customers and new types of grid services will increasingly help drive growth in energy storage in the coming years, but the future mix between battery-based and alternative storage types is still unclear.

Investors are becoming increasingly comfortable with energy storage as an asset class but numerous regulatory and market design hurdles remain across European markets.

The first awards of funding designed to “turbocharge” UK projects developing long-duration energy storage technologies have been made by the country’s government, with £6.7 million (US$9.11 million) pledged. 

The EStor-Lux battery site in south Belgium fully launched commercial activity in December and has successfully participated in grid frequency auctions.

Guidehouse Insights says that the annual power capacity deployments of battery-based residential energy storage systems (RESS) are expected to grow at a CAGR of 21.3% from 2021 to 2030 globally.

Creating a wider ecosystem of services and software is essential for system integrators to stay ahead, according to Julian Jansen at Fluence.

Construction has started on a 3.5GWh pumped hydro plant in Gran Canaria, Spain, and progress has been made on two other projects totalling 18GWh of storage in mainland Spain and Nevada, US.