Energy Storage Technologies Market

Energy Storage Technologies Market Overview

It is predicted that the global economy will increase by three-folds between now and 2050. This, in turn, is likely to result in increased energy demands.According to Enerdata Energy Statistical Yearbook 2016, electricity demand has more than doubled between 1990 and 2015 to reach 20,568 TWh. This demand is projected to grow even further; in fact, by 2035, the growth is expected to be in the range of 69% to 81%. As the global economy aims for energy security, renewable energy sources such as solar and wind are expected to hold a key position in the future. However, a major constraint with such renewable sources is that energy is generated with a highly variable output in an intermittent manner. Therefore, the surplus energy is required to be stored so that it can be supplied during non-optimal generation periods such as at night time or when the wind is not blowing. Storage at a large scale has remained a major challenge; however, several developments have taken place in this domain and efforts are being made towards their feasible commercial deployments.

A variety of grid scale energy storage technologies are known to the industry and can be broadly categorized based on the type of energy being stored. Pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) is a well-established energy storage technique; however, because of known challenges, various other energy storage techniques, backed by public and private lending, have surfaced over the last decade. For a market such as energy storage, which is linked to the economy of a country, initiatives related to policy decisions and mass awareness play a key role in the growth. Some countries have introduced reforms / amendments in the policies to encourage the market for energy storage, while others are still debating on it. The White House Summit 2016 is a recent example of such initiatives. At the summit, a range of utility, industry and government storage commitments were highlighted to signify the importance of this subject. Post this, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) started working on re-evaluating some of the policies to encourage energy storage in the US.

At the time of release of this study, policies favoring renewable energy over other sources were in place in about 50 countries. The common theme across these policies is priority dispatch of electricity from renewable sources, special feed-in tariffs, quota obligations for renewable energy and energy tax exemptions. In addition, legal bindings / agreements, such as COP21, to tackle climate change are encouraging the use of renewable energy, which, in turn, is likely to drive the energy storage industry.

Scope of the Report

The Grid Scale Energy Storage Technologies Market, 2017-2030 report provides a comprehensive analysis of the current market landscape and a detailed future outlook of the large scale energy storage technologies. The study highlights various energy storage technologies that are currently commercially available or are under development. These technologies can be classified as mechanical energy storage, chemical energy storage, electrochemical energy storage, thermal energy storage or electromagnetic energy storage technologies. The industry has long revolved around pumped hydro energy storage, which currently contributes close to 95% of the global energy storage capacity. However, several geographical and environmental constraints associated with it are likely to limit its growth in the long term. As a result, stakeholders have developed / are developing novel energy storage technologies to overcome the limitations of conventional systems. The primary focus of this study is on these novel / upcoming energy storage technologies, including different types of battery storage, compressed air energy storage, concentrated solar power / molten salt energy storage, flywheel energy storage and power-to-gas energy storage.

The study provides a holistic coverage of the developments that are impacting the current energy storage setup and are likely to drive significant changes in energy management approaches in the long term. We were able to identify close to 170 energy storage technologies (excluding PHES) segmented across aforementioned categories. In addition to other elements, the study elaborates on the following:

• The current status of the market with respect to key players / technologies along with information on rated power, energy, duration / discharge time of the technologies and geographical location of the companies.
• Comprehensive profiles of some of the upcoming players under each energy storage category, covering details on the current focus of the companies, their specific energy storage technologies and associated recent developments / initiatives.
• Various investments and grants received by companies focused in this area to support their R&D activities, a key enabler that will continue to drive developments in the long term. In addition, respective governments have taken encouraging policy decisions, which have provided positive outlook to the energy storage industry.
• A case study on pumped hydro energy storage, where we have provided information on the plants that are currently operational as well as the ones expected to be operational in the near future. In addition, we have highlighted the historical trends that are likely to govern the future evolution.
• Key drivers and restraints for the growth of the grid scale energy storage market. Factors such as rising adoption of renewable energy sources, limitations of conventional energy storage systems and high electricity charges are likely to fuel the demand of energy storage systems.
• Potential future growth of the grid scale energy storage market (both in terms of installed capacity and expected revenue generation) across different technologies (CSP / molten salt energy storage, compressed air energy storage, lithium-ion batteries, lead acid batteries, flow batteries, flywheel energy storage, power-to-gas energy storage and other upcoming technologies). We have taken into account the levelized cost of energy storage to determine revenues for different energy storage technologies. The report covers forecast (till 2030) for the global as well as specific regional markets (North America, Europe, Asia and Rest of World) in terms of installed capacity. It also includes individual forecasts  on the installed capacity in specific countries, including the US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, Ireland, China, India, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Chile and Morocco, that are poised to witness healthy growth in the short-midterm and long term.

Our opinions and insights presented in this study were influenced by discussions conducted with several key players in this domain. The report features detailed transcripts of interviews held with Anoop Mathur (CTO and Founder, Terrafore Technologies), Camilo Lopez Tobar (Business Development Manager, Electrochaea), Dr. Markus Ostermeier (Product Development Manager, Electrochaea), Eric Murray (President and CEO, Temporal Power), Itai Karelic (Vice President Business Development, EnStorage), John McCleod (Vice President Engineering, ZincNyx Energy Solutions) and Suresh Singh (President and CEO, ZincNyx Energy Solutions), Nicolas Velasco (Commercial Director, Albufera Energy Storage), Rainer Grumann (Vice President Sales, Heliocentris), Sonya Davidson (President and CEO, H2 Energy Now), and Tom Stepien (CEO and Co-founder, Primus Power).