The Asia-Pacific region will continue to be the world’s leading centre of lithium-ion cell manufacturing for the next decade, but it won’t just be price reductions in batteries that will drive a 30% drop in front-of-meter battery storage in key markets China, Australia and South Korea.
At first glance, renewable power generation has created, in the eyes of traditional industries, an investment nirvana. By understanding how these better-capitalised companies view renewables’ merchant risk, we can identify where future energy storage projects should seek finance partners, says Charles Lesser, a partner at Apricum – The Cleantech Advisory.
An increase of 20GWh of battery storage could reduce the amount of wasted wind power in Great Britain by 50%, according to new analysis from consultancy LCP.
Updated 10 January 2021: “These longer-duration 2 hour systems highlight a growing recognition of battery based energy storage systems as not only super-fast but also super-robust infrastructure assets that can serve a broader range of capacity and system balancing needs for 20 years or more.”
System integrators – companies that create large-scale and commercial and industrial battery energy storage system (BESS) solutions to order – have driven the market’s rapid growth so far but face a diversifying landscape marked by competition and consolidation in the years ahead.
Let’s take a look at the news stories that had the most page views on the site since the beginning of 2020. The list covers everything from always-in-focus topics of cost reduction and competitiveness, to fire safety, innovation and commercialisation of new technologies and, of course in this year, COVID-19.
The cost of Lithium-ion battery packs has fallen close to 90%, and rates lower than US$100/kWh have been reported for the first time, foreshadowing rapid declines across the energy storage market.
The European Union (EU) looks set to introduce the “most extensive product legislation in the world for batteries,” but its potential shortcomings include the risk that battery prices could go up and that established manufacturers from Asia might be better positioned to benefit from the rules than the new European value chain.
