POWER March 2021 - 20

ENERGY STORAGE
'Best Is Yet to Come' for Energy
Storage Technology
Advancements in batteries, along with an improved regulatory environment and
more investment, could make this decade the Roaring '20s for energy storage.
Darrell Proctor
M
any areas have been considered
a focus for the electric
power industry in recent years.
The grid continues to face several challenges,
as technology advancements
transform the way electricity is produced
and delivered.
Industry analysts have told POWER
that energy storage, be it from batteries,
thermal systems, mechanical storage,
hydrogen production, or pumped
hydropower, is critical to the advancement
of the power sector. The need for
storage is considered paramount to the
electrification of transportation and other
businesses, and to continued growth
in renewable energy.
" For energy storage, the best is definitely
yet to come, " said Ryan Brown,
co-founder and CEO of Salient Energy, a
Canada-based zinc-ion battery manufacturer.
Brown told POWER, " We know
that the industry is still in its infancy in
almost all respects. While adoption is
already meaningful and rapidly accelerating,
a clean energy world will require
trillions of dollars' worth of additional capacity
to be installed.
" The increasingly favorable regulatory
environment for energy storage,
combined with the evolution of busi1.
Tesla is among the companies driving growth in energy storage. The company's Megapack
technology, shown here in an artist's rendering, is a utility-scale storage product. The company
in a recent earnings report said its 2020 energy storage deployments " for the first time ... surpassed
3 GWh in a single year, which is an 83% increase compared to the prior year [2019]. "
Courtesy: Tesla
ergy transition (see sidebar), especially
when it comes to providing grid energy
storage and electrifying transport. Battery
energy storage systems (BESS)
have grown significantly in the U.S. over
the past decade (Figure 1). The EIA said
that in 2010, seven U.S. battery storage
systems accounted for 59 MW of power
capacity. By year-end 2018, there were
125 systems in operation, with 869 MW
" Lithium-ion is the dominant technology,
and is likely to stay that for the
foreseeable future. "
ness models that are bringing more
capital into the space, means that the
2020s will be a breakout decade for the
energy storage sector, " Brown said.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration
(EIA) in a summer 2020 report
said batteries are a key part of the en20
of
the U.S. Energy Storage Association
who was recently named to a top post
at the U.S. Dept. of Energy, told the audience
at POWER's Distributed Energy
Conference last year that additions of
battery storage doubled in 2020, and
probably would have tripled if not for
construction slowdowns caused by the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Lower battery costs have supported
-Morten Lund, Stoel Rives LLP
of installed power capacity. Those EIA
figures do not include recent capacity
additions, including the 1.2 GW of storage
installed in the U.S. in 2020 set to
come online in the next year, most of it
in California.
Kelly Speakes-Backman, former CEO
www.powermag.com
growth. The EIA said the cost of utilityscale
battery storage in the U.S. fell almost
70% between 2015 and 2018. The
U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory
(NREL) projects that increased
battery production, and market competition,
will continue to drive costs down.
NREL recently said it sees mid-range
costs for lithium-ion batteries falling another
45% by 2030.
" Lithium-ion batteries remain the
defining technology for new energy
storage projects, " said Brown, while
noting change is coming. " New technologies
that offer performance and
material cost improvements, while taking
advantage of lithium-ion's low-cost
manufacturing, show serious promise
for the space. "
POWER | March 2021

http://www.powermag.com

POWER March 2021

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