Utility-scale energy storage to reach nearly 150 GW by 2015

NEW YORK, USA: More than 128,000 megawatts of energy storage are currently attached to the power grid worldwide, and more will be needed if renewable energy sources are to be integrated into the modern electrical grid, according to ABI Research.

Renewable energy sources typically are intermittent by their very nature; solar power facilities don’t generate electricity at night, and wind farms can’t produce when the wind doesn’t blow. The electrical grid needs reliable power generating resources that are steady and predictable, to best service anticipated electrical demand. That’s where storage comes in; energy generated from renewable sources can be stored during peak generation times, and fed into the grid when it’s dark or the wind stops.

A new ABI Research market study, “Renewable Energy Storage,” forecasts that utility-scale energy storage worldwide will increase to nearly 150 GW (150,000 MW) by 2015, growing at a CAGR of 2.6 percent through the 2010-2015 forecast period.

Larry Fisher, research director, says: “Over the next five years, multiple government-funded demonstration projects worldwide will help advance a number of energy storage technologies by validating their ability to optimize power. These include lithium-ion batteries, molten salt thermal energy storage, and lead-carbon batteries. Further, as energy storage costs decline with increasing production of these technologies, particularly with batteries, costs will be more in line with current sources of energy production, which will boost their acceptance by the utility community.”

Fisher adds: “Over the coming decade, as countries across the globe strive to meet their renewable energy targets, they will come to understand the need for energy-oriented storage. However, while such storage will serve to keep power costs low in the long run, each such implementation requires hundreds of millions of dollars to install and test, which will create a near-term rise in end-user electrical rates.”