Germany’s energy storage sector now employs more than half the number of people as the country’s lignite industry, according to figures released last month.

An annual report by the German Energy Storage Association (Bundesverband Energiespeicher or BVES), compiled in association with Berlin-based energy sector consultancy Team Consult, found the energy storage industry employed around 11,130 workers in 2017.

This is set to rise 9 percent to around 12,140 in 2018. Meanwhile figures from Euracoal, the European Association for Coal and Lignite, show Germany’s lignite industry had around 20,740 direct and indirect workers in 2015.

The BVES data shows employment in Germany’s residential battery market has grown 131 percent since 2015. The segment is expected to employ 1,800 professionals this year.

More people are employed by industrial and utility-scale battery companies, although growth in this segment has been more modest, rising from 2,250 in 2015 to an expected 3,200 this year.

The report also showed the Germany energy storage industry made €4.6 billion ($5.6 billion) in sales in 2017.

That is expected to grow to around €5.1 billion ($6.2 billion) this year, of which around €3.3 billion ($4 billion) is to come from what the BVES terms “new storage technologies” and their applications.

These technologies cover just about everything other than pumped hydro, including batteries, power-to-gas and thermal energy storage. Their contribution to Germany’s energy storage sector revenues has increased almost 74 percent since 2015.

Over the same period, the pumped hydro sector has declined slightly in revenues, from €2 billion ($2.5 billion) in 2015 to an expected €1.8 billion ($2.2 billion) this year. Most of the growth in new technologies is attributable to rapid expansion in the battery market.

The big driver financially was battery sales to utilities and commercial and industrial (C&I) customers. These were worth €1.12 billion ($1.37 billion) in 2017 and are set to grow more than 22 percent to €1.37 billion ($1.68 billion) this year.

Spectacular falls in the cost of wind, solar and battery technology mean that clean energy is increasingly pushing coal and gas out of the world’s electricity generation mix in a “chilling” development for the future of fossil fuel power generation.

Research group Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) has released its latest report on the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and it suggests that President Donald Trump’s attempts to revive the U.S. coal industry is doomed to failure. That’s because the price of battery storage has tumbled by 79% since 2010, from $1,000/kWh to $209/kWh while both wind and solar power have fallen by 18% in just a year.

BNEF says that fossil fuel power, which is responsible for the bulk of the world’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which cause climate change, “is facing an unprecedented challenge in all three roles it performs in the energy mix – the supply of ‘bulk generation,’ the supply of ‘dispatchable generation,’ and the provision of ‘flexibility.’”

Wind and solar PV costs have continued to fall over the last year thanks to falling capital costs, higher efficiency and the spread of competitive tenders for clean power around the world, increasing their viability in bulk generation.

Dispatchable power is the ability to respond to requests from the power network to increase or decrease generation and here, it is the pairing of battery storage with wind and solar to enable these intermittent sources of generation to tackle fluctuations in demand by smoothing output or diverting power into batteries to be used at a later date.

Flexibility is the ability to respond to supply shortages and surpluses over a period of hours, and here batteries on their own are now increasingly competitive not just with open-cycle gas plants but also other options such as pumped hydro.

Elena Giannakopoulou, head of energy economics at BNEF, said: “Our team has looked closely at the impact of the 79% decrease seen in lithium-ion battery costs since 2010 on the economics of this storage technology in different parts of the electricity system. The conclusions are chilling for the fossil fuel sector.

Since 70 percent of the global demand for energy is met by burning fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas, it’s not surprising that we’re pumping enormous amounts of climate-warning carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — an astonishing 35.8 billion tons (32.5 billion metric tons) in 2017, according to the International Energy Agency.

But even with clean energy sources such as wind and solar power increasing rapidly across the planet, we’re probably still going to be using fossil fuels as well for the foreseeable future. That’s why many are looking to carbon capture technology for power plants as a way to reduce emissions. The Petra Nova power plant near Houston, currently the world’s biggest post-combustion carbon capture facility, kept more than 1 million tons (907,000 metric tons) of carbon from going into the atmosphere in the first nine months after it went online in January 2017.

Using the Carbon We Capture

But that leads to another question. What do we do with all that carbon dioxide? Storing it underground is one option. But in an article published on March 29, 2018 in the scientific journal Joule, a group of Canadian and U.S. scientists describe an even more intriguing solution. Captured CO2 could be converted into other molecules to create fuels to store energy generated by wind turbines or solar panels, as well as to supply raw materials to make plastic and other products.

“Consider this as a form of artificial photosynthesis,” Phil De Luna, a doctoral candidate in Materials Science Engineering at the University of Toronto and one of the article’s authors, explains. “Plants take CO2 and sunlight and water and make sugars and other things they need to live. We’re taking energy and CO2 and converting it into things we can use.”

Small-scale, grid-connected energy storage solutions, or “community batteries,” can have a viable business case, supporting the ongoing growth of decentralized energy generation resources. This is one of the key findings of a feasibility study published today by DNV GL, based on work by an industry-wide consortium that includes energy storage firm Alfen and flexibility aggregator Peeeks. The study finds that, given current costs for lithium-ion battery technology and grid expansion projects, community storage can be both economically and socially viable. Furthermore, it outlines a decision-making framework to help grid operators and other stakeholders identify and optimize business models and revenue streams for community storage in any market.

Decentralized energy sources such as rooftop solar panels or individual wind turbines are an important part of the transition to a more sustainable energy future. They can help energy users reduce their bills and contribute to a more sustainable energy mix with lower greenhouse gas emissions. But such resources put extra strain on the local electricity distribution infrastructure, which must be prepared to handle any peaks in generation output.

Distribution network operators (DNOs) can expand the capacity of their network with additional underground cables, but this takes a lot of time and money. An alternative is to install batteries close to decentralized resources to store any excess energy generated and feed it into the grid when demand exceeds supply. Regulations in most countries prevent the network operator owning these distributed storage solutions. Instead an independent player owns the battery facility and sells its capacity as a service to the DNO and other stakeholders.

The report identifies the conditions and stakeholders, such as home owners, energy retailers and network operators, required to make community storage services viable. Furthermore, it shows that a multi-stakeholder approach brings benefits for all parties.

Small-scale, grid-connected energy storage solutions – or community batteries – can have a viable business case, supporting the ongoing growth of decentralized energy generation resources, according to a feasibility study published today by DNV GL.

DNV GL, a global quality assurance and risk management company, says the findings are based on work by an industry-wide consortium that includes energy storage firm Alfen and flexibility aggregator Peeeks. The study finds that, given current costs for lithium-ion battery technology and grid expansion projects, community storage can be both economically and socially viable. Furthermore, it outlines a decision-making framework to help grid operators and other stakeholders identify and optimize business models and revenue streams for community storage in any market.

DNV GL explains that decentralized energy sources, such as rooftop solar panels or individual wind turbines, are an important part of the transition to a more sustainable energy future. They can help energy users reduce their bills and contribute to a more sustainable energy mix with lower greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. But such resources put an extra strain on the local electricity distribution infrastructure, which must be prepared to handle any peaks in generation output, according to the study.

Distribution network operators (DNOs) can expand the capacity of their network with additional underground cables, but this can take a lot of time and money, the study notes. An alternative is to install batteries close to decentralized resources to store any excess energy generated and feed it into the grid when demand exceeds supply. However, regulations in most countries prevent the network operator from owning these distributed storage solutions. Instead, an independent player owns the battery facility and sells its capacity as a service to the DNO and other stakeholders.

The report identifies the conditions and stakeholders – such as homeowners, energy retailers and network operators – required to make community storage services viable. Furthermore, it shows that a multi-stakeholder approach brings benefits for all parties

ARNHEM, Netherlands (April 4, 2018) — Small-scale, grid-connected energy storage solutions – or “community batteries” – can have a viable business case, supporting the ongoing growth of decentralized energy generation resources. This is one of the key findings of a feasibility study published today by DNV GL, based on work by an industry-wide consortium that includes energy storage firm Alfen and flexibility aggregator Peeeks. The study finds that – given current costs for lithium-ion battery technology and grid expansion projects – community storage can be both economically and socially viable. Furthermore, it outlines a decision-making framework to help grid operators and other stakeholders identify and optimize business models and revenue streams for community storage in any market.

Helping grids cope with decentralized generation

Decentralized energy sources such as rooftop solar panels or individual wind turbines are an important part of the transition to a more sustainable energy future. They can help energy users reduce their bills and contribute to a more sustainable energy mix with lower greenhouse gas emissions. But such resources put extra strain on the local electricity distribution infrastructure, which must be prepared to handle any peaks in generation output.

Distribution network operators (DNOs) can expand the capacity of their network with additional underground cables, but this takes a lot of time and money. An alternative is to install batteries close to decentralized resources to store any excess energy generated and feed it into the grid when demand exceeds supply. Regulations in most countries prevent the network operator owning these distributed storage solutions. Instead an independent player owns the battery facility and sells its capacity as a service to the DNO and other stakeholders.

The report identifies the conditions and stakeholders, such as home owners, energy retailers and network operators, required to make community storage services viable. Furthermore, it shows that a multi-stakeholder approach brings benefits for all parties.

Viable community storage: a win for all

For DNOs, multi-stakeholder community storage solutions are a much cheaper alternative to expanding the grid. Moreover, they can be installed and fully operational much faster than new grid capacity and with significantly less disturbance to the local environment and population as there is no need to dig up kilometres of roads to lay new cables. For parties interested in installing and operating community storage services, the study shows that long-term contracts are a commercially interesting option, potentially making it easier to find funding for new projects. Meanwhile, end users – whether residential, commercial or industrial – can be confident of a reliable and affordable supply of sustainable electricity.

The market for energy storage on the power grid is growing at a rapid clip, driven by declining prices and supportive government policies.

Based on our research on the operation and costs of electricity grids, especially the benefits of new technologies, we are confident energy storage could transform the way American homeowners, businesses and utilities produce and use power.

Balancing acts

Energy storage in this context simply means saving electricity for later use. It’s like having a bunch of rechargeable batteries, but much larger than the ones in your cellphone and probably connected to the grid.

After annual average growth of about 50 percent for five years, the U.S. electricity industry installed a total of 1 gigawatt-hour of new storage capacity between 2013 and 2017, according to the firm GTM Research. That’s enough to power 16 million laptops for several hours.

While this amount of storage is less than 0.2 percent of the average amount of electricity the U.S. consumes, analysts predict that installations will double between 2017 and 2018 and then keep expanding rapidly in the U.S. and around the world.

To see why this trend is a big deal, consider how electricity works.

It takes a hidden world of complexity and a series of delicate balancing acts to power homes and workplaces because the grid has historically had little storage capacity. After being generated at power plants, electricity usually travels down power lines at the speed of light and most of it is consumed immediately.

Without the means to store electricity, utilities have to produce just enough to meet demand around the clock, including peak hours.

That makes electricity different from most industries. Just imagine what would happen if automakers had to do this. The moment you bought a car, a worker would have to drive it out the factory gate. Assembly lines would constantly speed up and slow down based on consumer whims.

It sounds maddening and ridiculous, right? But electric grid operatorsbasically pull this off, balancing supply and demand every few seconds by turning power plants on and off.

That’s why a storage boom would make a big difference. Storage creates the equivalent of a warehouse to stow electricity when it is plentiful for other times when it is needed.