The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the US has forecast dramatic cost reduction trends for battery energy storage to continue on a rapid trajectory to 2030 with reductions continuing at a slower pace through to 2050.

Vertically-integrated solar PV company Canadian Solar won nearly 1GWh of battery storage contracts in 2020 and CEO Shawn Qu has said it expects to “capture around 10% of the battery storage market in the US alone” during this year.

There has been growing uptake in battery energy storage in Midwestern US states that have traditionally depended on burning coal for electricity, with some “very big projects planned,” an analyst has said.

Despite the fall in unit prices for energy storage, a total of US$3.6 billion of investment was committed to energy storage projects in 2020, around the same amount as in 2019.

Find out what’s been going on in the UK energy storage market over the past three years, presented by not-for-profit clean energy expert group Regen at the Virtual Energy Storage Summit which took place online in late September.

While European power markets outpace the US and China for renewable energy deployment, the continent’s policymakers are yet to recognise the importance of energy storage for integrating that capacity onto the grid, new research from Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables finds.

The market for grid-connected energy storage will defy the “headwinds” caused by the coronavirus pandemic on industries across the world, analysis firm IHS Markit has predicted.

Dimitrios Pappas, analyst at new energy consultancy Delta-EE, considers the impact the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) could have on the energy transition, particularly for batteries used in EVs and ESS, while Energy-Storage.news editor Andy Colthorpe adds his own take.

While recycling of lithium and other materials such as cobalt from batteries will greatly increase in the coming years, the potential availability of second life batteries should not be underestimated, according to new research and data.

India’s Goods and Services Tax (GST), a single tax applicable across the whole of the country, will be lowered for lithium-ion batteries by 10%, in a move which has been welcomed by the India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA).