Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) has forecast a 25-fold increase in stationary battery storage capacity in the UK as falling costs attract $14 billion of investment over the next few decades.
According to the latest edition of its annual energy storage outlook, the total is expected to swell from 1.13GW in 2018 to 29GW in 2040. Meanwhile, the amount of energy the batteries can store is predicted to increase 65 times over from 1.25GWh to 77GWh.
BNEF expects the equivalent global figures to rise from 9GW/17GWh in 2018 to 1,095GW/2,850GWh in 2040. It says lithium-ion battery costs per kilowatt hour will halve by 2030, as demand takes off for both stationary storage and electric vehicles.
The total demand for batteries from the stationary storage and electric transport sectors is forecast to be 4,584GWh by 2040, providing a major opportunity for battery makers and miners of component metals such as lithium, cobalt and nickel.
“Two big changes this year are that we have raised our estimate of the investment that will go into energy storage by 2040 by more than $40 billion, and that we now think the majority of new capacity will be utility-scale, rather than behind-the-meter at homes and businesses,” said BNEF energy storage analyst and report co-author Yayoi Sekine.
The study also suggests that just 10 countries will account for almost three quarters of the global market in gigawatt terms. South Korea currently holds the lead, but the report predicts it will soon cede that position to the US and China, which will be far in front by 2040.
The other major markets include India, Germany, Latin America, Southeast Asia, France, Australia and the UK.
Logan Goldie-Scot, head of energy storage at BNEF, said: “In the near term, renewables-plus-storage, especially solar-plus-storage, has become a major driver for battery build. This is a new era of dispatchable renewables, based on new contract structures between developer and grid.”
In June, Ofgem launched a consultation on proposed changes to classify storage as a type of generation.
Modifying the generation license to include storage was one of 29 planned actions listed within the government and Ofgem’s smart systems and flexibility plan released in July 2017.