What a difference a decade can make. Ten years ago, Li-ion batteries were mostly confined to phones and personal computers; fast-forward to the present and they now power our cars, houses, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), marine vehicles, and even factories.
The coming energy storage explosion will, however, make all this look like a mere stage rehearsal.
A host of energy experts including the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), UBS, BloombergNEF, S&P Market Intelligence, Wood Mackenzie and others are extremely bullish about the prospects of the battery storage industry– both over the near-and long-term–as the clean energy drive gains huge momentum.
Investors who capture the massive economic opportunity could enjoy long growth runways for decades to come.
Utility-scale storage critical in a green world
With the severity of our climate crisis becoming more apparent with each passing day, the need to rapidly transition to a renewable-fueled world becomes even more urgent. Despite our best efforts, greenhouse gas emissions have kept climbing, putting paid our goal to keep the planet from warming to no more than 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This calls for deeper cuts on dangerous emissions and a much faster transition to lower or zero-carbon energy sources.
At the center of our green energy drive are solar and wind power, both of which are expected to contribute nearly half of the global power mix by 2050 as per Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The intermittent nature of these renewable sources, however, means that large-scale storage is absolutely critical if the world is to successfully shift away from high dependence on fossil-fuels.
The surge in lithium-ion battery production since 2010 can be chalked up to huge improvements in the technology from a cost and performance standpoint.
Over the past decade, an 85% decline in prices fueled a revolution in lithium-ion battery technology, making electric vehicles and large-scale commercial battery deployments a reality for the first time in history.
The next decade will be defined by a massive increase in utility-scale storage.
United States utilities are trying to cut down on emissions by implementing utility-scale battery storage units (one megawatt (MW) or greater power capacity).
In March 2019, NextEra Energy (NYSE:NEE) announced plans to build a 409-MW energy storage project in Florida that will be powered by utility-scale solar.
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