Lithium-ion predicted to dominate even in ‘longer duration’ global market

There is a global trend towards longer duration energy storage and even in this segment, lithium-ion batteries are expected to dominate the market over flow batteries and other technologies, an I.H.S Markit analyst has told Energy-Storage.News.

The research firm issued its bi-annual Grid-Connected Energy Storage Tracker to its clients at the end of July, predicting the rise of grid-connected systems from an installed base of less than 4GW today to hit 52GW by 2025.

The company found that 1.3GW was deployed worldwide in 2016, expected to rise by 2020 to 4.7GW and then 8.8GW by 2025, corresponding to annual revenues of US$1.5 billion rising to US$7 billion in that time, a compound annual growth rate of 16%.

I.H.S Markit identified three leading regions that are driving forward in energy storage deployment fastest: California, where subsidies such as the SGIP (Self-Generation Incentive Program) and a mandate for investor-owned utilities to procure 1.35GW of energy storage, coupled with a corresponding growth in PV and other distributed energy technologies have lead the way; South Korea, where utilities, many government-owned, have been procuring large-scale frequency regulation projects directly and are moving on to renewables-integration projects, with I.H.S expecting more than 300MW annual growth from 2018 onwards; the much-talked about Australian market, where high electricity costs and relatively low grid reliability have pushed the solar PV market forward and energy storage is now following, with large-scale storage tenders and high profile projects such as Tesla’s in South Australia and Lyon Group’s 640MWh tender.

By country, six leaders were picked out for now and for the near future: the US, South Korea, Japan, Germany, Australia and the UK. The former will enjoy compound annual growth rates of 21% between 2017 and 2025, with 1.2GW of grid-connected systems forecast to be deployed in 2020.        

In general terms, after a recent period of growth in single-application energy storage deployments, from frequency regulation and other grid-balancing and ancillary services markets to self-consumption of solar PV generation, I.H.S is expecting to see an increase in uptake of solar-plus-storage projects and utility deployment of dispatchable resources to meet capacity requirements.

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