Economics of Energy Storage Systems Renewed
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Economics of Energy Storage Systems Renewed

Energy CIO Insights | Thursday, July 11, 2019

As the demand for batteries increases, the prices have started to decline but not at the pace economists had predicted; instead, it is much slower. The demand for energy storage systems is high, but the supply has not caught up, and prices are erratic. The only way to smoothen out the price rate is by equipping for all cases.

FREMONT, CA: The Lithium-ion batteries are set to reduce with an approximate value difference of $50-60 per kWh by the year 2030, according to research by Navigant. The latest market data on advanced battery and energy storage pricing trends suggests that the whole range of energy storage technologies are solely focused on Li-ion batteries for utility-scale grid storage. Although prices have set out on a descending path in the past year, the decline is slower due to supply shortages.

The decline in Li-ion batteries has been conservative as their pack designs are expensive. Different variety of cell and pack designs, a wide array of cathode chemistries on offer, and economies of scales considering regional differences have solidified the range of prices in the market. An added downward pressure can be exerted to the average pricing only if the systems are installed in huge volumes. The integration of renewables is necessary to ensure massive quantities of energy storage. With the increase in the grid storage projects pricing of batteries will be subjected to decline according to the researcher’s modeling projection. The modeled prices for the grid-scale systems have consistently large output sizes and even massive capacities of storage ranging from 5MWh to 40MWh, the principle of the phenomenon is that the overall analysis will demonstrate the variation in system pricing by each component in various duration ranges.

IDTechX, UK-based analysts found out that 6GWh of stationary storage had been installed in 2018, making it a remarkable year for highlighting the forward thought of larger projects being built. Despite the various hiccups in the field of renewables integration and storage, many countries will work on encouraging systems as they require massive amounts of energy to manage moving forward.

The demands can only be fulfilled with the balance of traditional generation to satisfy the instantaneous requirement, with ancillary battery back-ups to smoothen out discrepancies. It will also help to smoothen out the decline in prices. It is very crucial to recognize that energy storage has a vast potential to upend the industry structures and can define the power markets. Decline in rates or not, the one thing to do is to equip the systems with conventional or the latest energy storage systems.

See Also: Energy Tech Review

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