Energy Storage

The fast expansion of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind has highlighted the crucial need for effective, scalable energy storage systems. As intermittent sources, their power output varies with environmental variables, necessitating storage to balance supply and demand. Energy storage serves as a buffer, absorbing excess electricity when output exceeds use and returning it to the grid as needed.

Energy storage, at its core, decouples the time of generation from demand, making it a critical enabler for accelerating the transition to a sustainable, decarbonized electrical grid powered primarily by renewables. Energy storage improves grid flexibility and dependability, reducing challenges such as ramping limits, frequency control, and inefficient generator cycle.

While pumped hydro currently dominates global storage capacity, emerging technologies like batteries and hydrogen offer advantages in scalability, geographic flexibility, and rapid response times. Major players like Tesla, LG Chem, Panasonic, Siemens, and NGK are driving innovation, alongside startups developing novel chemistries and approaches, such as Verkor in France.

Global energy storage showing an increase trend on yearly basis. In 2023, it marked a 149% increase reaching 110 gigawatt-hours (GWh) (Orrick April 2024). As well as, it’s projected 71 gigawatt (GW) or 167GWh by 2024 (Trinasola March 2024) and with projections reaching 1,194 GWh by 2030 (BloombergNEF October 2022). Another big milestone is yet to come. The G7 member countries agreed on a new global energy storage of 1500GW by 2030 (BloombergNEF May 2024). This dramatic growth indicates storage's escalating importance as renewables claim a larger share of electricity production worldwide.

Finally, effective energy storage is vital for optimizing renewable energy integration and accelerating the clean energy transition. As storage costs decline and deployments expand, these technologies will become increasingly pivotal for enabling a reliable, decentralized and sustainable electricity network powered by wind, solar and other carbon-free sources.

Hydrogen

Hydrogen has emerged as a promising energy carrier and storage medium due to its high energy density by weight, ease of transportation, and versatility across multiple sectors. However, storing such highly flammable gas comes with essential obstacles to be addressed. When produced via electrolysis using renewable electricity, hydrogen is a carbon-free fuel that can be combusted or converted to electricity in fuel cells.

Battery

While hydrogen offers advantages for seasonal storage, batteries excel in short-term storage applications like smoothing renewable power output, frequency regulation and providing backup capacity. Lithium-ion currently dominates the battery storage market due to its high energy density, cycle efficiency and maturity.