Descending Prices in Energy Storage Leaving no Footprint
energycioinsights

Descending Prices in Energy Storage Leaving no Footprint

Energy CIO Insights | Tuesday, July 09, 2019

The usage of battery storage in renewable energy projects is futile unless the technology is cheap enough to create a difference for project developers and residential consumers. Despite the falling drift in storage prices, the implementation in grids is hindered. More on the impact of the economy on the costs of storage technologies are discussed. 

FREMONT, CA: The widespread utilization of renewable energy around the globe has resulted in questions being raised on the capacities of renewables to replace traditional sources of energy for the production of baseload power. While dealing with concerns as such, the energy storage technologies have come to the spotlight, as it has become a necessity. However, the high prices of energy storage have remained a hurdle that cannot be jumped over to implement large-scale adoption.

Impact of Cost Reduction:

The energy storage systems utilized for operations and maintenance enhance power scheduling and quality of solar projects. It not only develops the performance of the plant but also saves power producers from being penalized for deviation in schedules of generation. The energy storage systems encourage more revenue as it translates into decreased system faults, curtailments, and penalties. The decreasing cost in energy storage and its widespread adoption will also reduce the operational costs of the solar plants.  

The decreasing costs will aid the setting up of rural microgrids and mini-grids. The commercial and industrial players are benefitted if they have rooftop solar projects set up. Moreover, the crucial impact is the uptake of electric vehicles (EVs).

Outlook:

A reduction in storage costs is resulted by scaling up deployment and setting up a local manufacturing facility. The energy storage, even with the high prices at present, is starting to become a traded commodity, domestic manufacturing alone cannot help in the reduction of expenses in this case. The decline in costs would mainly depend on global demand and supply scenarios. The price of batteries utilized in EVs is likely to fall with the increase in uptake, and the only thing that has created a blind eye that exists around EVs is the increased costs.  

On the flipside, the supply is being hampered due to lack of resources available for battery manufacturing, creating an increase in the rates. The elements used are lithium and cobalt, which are running out, causing a short in supply. The resources, when appropriately managed, can fund the manufacturing, but geopolitical reasons have also been an added factor affecting the supply.  

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