Make the most cost-effective battery for energy storage

Cost effective energy storage is arguably the main hurdle to overcoming the generation variability of renewables. Though energy storage can be achieved in a variety of ways, battery storage has the advantage that it can be deployed in a modular and distributed fashion 4.

It is important to examine the economic viability of battery storage investments. Here the authors introduced the Levelized Cost of Energy Storage metric to estimate the breakeven cost for energy storage and found that behind-the-meter storage installations will be financially advantageous in both Germany and California.

Lithium batteries, in particular, demonstrate the best economic performance under the assumed annual cycle frequency. Notably, when the energy storage duration is extended to 6 h, the LCOS of lithium batteries can drop to <0.65 CNY/kWh.

The application analysis reveals that battery energy storage is the most cost-effective choice for durations of <2 h, while thermal energy storage is competitive for durations of 2.3–8 h. Pumped hydro storage and compressed-air energy storage emerges as the superior options for durations exceeding 8 h.

BESTs are increasingly deployed, so critical challenges with respect to safety, cost, lifetime, end-of-life management and temperature adaptability need to be addressed. The rise in renewable energy utilization is increasing demand for battery energy-storage technologies (BESTs).

The results show that battery energy storage is almost in an absolute advantage when the duration is <2 h, thermal energy storage has a strong competitiveness when the duration is 2.3–8 h, and Pumped storage gains economic advantages from 2.3 h, and dominates from 7.8 h and beyond.