While energy storage can be considered “critical” to Australia’s transformation to a distributed, low carbon energy mix, a lack of investment and planning for the technology could have negative consequences for the network.
The US national Energy Storage Association (ESA) has advocated that the nation should aim to deploy 35GW of energy storage by 2025, claiming it could result in US$4bn of network cost savings and generate 167,000 jobs.
A representative of National Grid, the UK’s transmission system operator (TSO), has said that energy storage will be “integral” to the network’s flexibility strategy – while urging developers not to rely solely on early frequency regulation contracts.
While decreases in costs continue to make energy storage more and more competitive, financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard has highlighted just how variable project economics can be, citing examples of US projects with 9%, 11% and 21% IRR (internal rate of return).
A City of London investment bank has said it agrees that Swiss energy storage maker and integrator Leclanché will reach profitability, but expects it to take a year longer than the company itself has predicted.
Pierre-Pascal Urbon, CEO of solar inverter manufacturer SMA, has said that the company is anticipating medium-term “exponential growth” in the energy storage market, reporting a “positive performance” in storage-related sales.
Interest in energy storage in the Middle East is ‘ramping up significantly’, as we reported last week in an extract from this interview with IHS Markit analyst Julian Jansen. His firm is forecasting 1.8GW of energy storage for the region by 2025 – from an installed base of next-to-nothing today. Jansen talked us through some of the drivers, market dynamics and the general picture of what we might see developing.
National Grid has reduced its forecasts for electricity storage capacity in the UK down to just 10.7GW by 2050 in the most ambitious scenario set out within its future projections for the energy sector.
While the global energy storage industry has continued its pace of rapid growth during the past year, well-established markets remain highly concentrated in specific regions of the world. Alex Eller of Navigant Research discusses many of the factors influencing growth trends for energy storage at both utility-scale and distributed levels.
Hybrid systems combining the complementary aspects of more than one technology could “change the energy storage landscape”, with 2.1GW predicted for deployment in less than 10 years, according to a report from Navigant Research.
