Over the past few years, rapid solar industry growth has powered the innovation and utilization of energy storage.
The principal trend that is driving everything in the field is the rapidly declining cost of lithium-ion battery technology. Using batteries to power vehicles and store electric energy on the grid were once thought to be completely uneconomic propositions.
But today, in many circumstances, using batteries to perform these functions is not only possible, but offers advantages over the incumbent technologies of fossil fuel generation and internal combustion.
The downward price trajectory of lithium-ion technology continues to confound many projections that the price would plateau or even reverse.
What has happened instead is that the ingenuity scientists, engineers, and manufacturers have continued to innovate in hundreds (if not thousands) of small but significant ways — continuing to push lithium-ion battery prices down and energy density up.
And one day in near future these micro-innovations — joined, perhaps, by a few macro-innovations in lithium-ion technology — will make the storage more affordable.
However, there will be a continued emphasis on and questions about the safety of storage technology.
The New York Fire Department, will be the first municipality to determine how energy storage can be placed and used in a dense urban environment.
Storing electricity in major urban areas using battery energy storage promises to be a very profitable opportunity for the energy storage industry, so long as it can be done safely.
“We still have a long way to go, but it is quite reasonable to expect that the prices of lithium-ion batteries will continue to fall and in the meantime the energy storage developers need to address the safety concerns that continue to challenge lithium-ion battery technology.”
Reference- Clean Technica, Futurism, Inside EVs, Science Today