US Energy Storage Strategy Includes Tech Cost Estimates

on December 23, 2020
PV-Magazine

The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) has released a new energy storage strategy that aims to accelerate the transition of technologies from the lab to the marketplace. Its “Energy Storage Grand Challenge” plan focuses on ways to manufacture technologies at scale in the United States, while ensuring the security of supply chains to enable domestic manufacturing.

The government also hopes to develop and domestically manufacture energy storage technologies that can meet all U.S. market demands by 2030. In addition, the DoE has released two companion storage-related reports: the “2020 Grid Energy Storage Technology Cost and Performance Assessment,” and the “Energy Storage Market Report 2020.”

By offering six use cases that identify energy storage applications, benefits and functional requirements for 2030 and beyond, the storage strategy identifies cost and performance targets. These include:

  • A $0.05/kWh levelized cost of storage for long-duration stationary applications, and a 90% reduction from 2020 baseline costs by 2030. The DoE said that achieving this levelized cost target would ease commercial viability for storage across a range of uses, including meeting load during periods of peak demand, grid preparation for fast charging of electric vehicles, and applications to ensure reliability of critical services.
  • A $80/kWh manufactured cost for a battery pack by 2030 for a 300-mile range electric vehicle – a 44% reduction from the current cost of $143 per rated kWh. Achieving this target would lead to cost-competitive electric vehicles and could benefit the production, performance and safety of batteries for stationary applications, the DoE said.

Cost and performance

The 117-page technology cost and performance assessment found that the dominant grid storage technology, pumped storage hydro, has a projected cost estimate of $262/kWh for a 100 MW, 10-hour installed system. The report said the most significant cost elements are the reservoir ($76/kWh) and powerhouse ($742/kW).

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