Stefan Schauss: The British energy storage industry should move forward strongly, independent from [exiting] the Brexit [process] or [a] no-deal Brexit. [The] fact is that Great Britain always has been an, electrically, [relatively] isolated terrain. However, we would expect a shift in the applications that would generate future deployment of energy storage. In case of [a disorderly] Brexit, there will be a currency impact that most likely leads to higher energy storage prices, and will shift supplies from countries with no bilateral agreements to countries of origin that do have trade agreements in place.
Another impact will surely come from import factors – customs, trade routes – to service battery deliveries in fast asset deployments. Delays and higher fees should, however, be short lived.
CellCube’s engagement in the UK is focused on long-duration, capacity-driven projects either in front or behind the meter. We take a more long-term oriented view and hence do not foresee a major impact on our strategy. Instead, it might accelerate our timeline. However, there will be some risk factors to be priced in, like currency fluctuations and, immediately following the event, most likely some delivery time adjustments.
In all, it will be a manageable risk for CellCube going forward, and project impacts for UK installations are scheduled into our plans.
How can British companies still participate and compete?
In a hard Brexit case, [the] U.K.’s many energy storage manufacturers are expanding globally. British companies should be able to participate in much the same fashion as any Asian company.
Europe has just launched its Battery Alliance, to become a world leader in battery manufacturing. Is Britain out of the equation from that project, if a chaotic Brexit were to come?
We do believe this will have a major impact for [production operations] which are to be set up in Britain and would be planned under an EBA [European Banking Authority] funding scheme. Most likely [it would] also impact British companies who are trying to establish [production] in the EU.
There are rumors Europe will achieve its battery ambitions by turning away from Li-ion solutions for better alternatives, performancewise and socio-ecologically.
Across Europe, there is a common consensus building that lithium might be limited, by its cost structure, to solve the transition to a fully renewable power grid on the stationary energy storage side.[That is] paired with some of the safety problems we are currently experiencing on global deployments of large-scale lithium cell-based installations, as well as the recycling question, which still remains unsolved to a large extent.
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