There’s a broad consensus that the world will deploy more grid storage in the coming years than it does today, but few people agree on exactly how much more.
Here’s a new prediction: Global lithium-ion battery deployments over the next five years will grow by 55 percent annually, according to a new report from GTM Research.
In other words, annual lithium-ion installations will grow more than eightfold, from 2 gigawatt-hours in 2017 to 18 in 2022.
This growth is starting from a tiny baseline — for comparison, electric-vehicle sales produced demand for 112 gigawatt-hours of batteries in 2017 alone. With 55 percent annual growth, though, grid storage will soon be substantial enough to alter the performance of electrical systems around the world.
The U.S. will continue to lead the pack in deployments, followed by China, Japan and Australia. The investments that states are putting in now with early battery projects, market reforms and storage mandates will bear fruit over the next several years.
That pioneering work, though, enables other countries to follow more quickly and efficiently. Whereas U.S. grid planning varies wildly across each of the 50 states, centralized policy formation in countries like China and South Korea allows for rapid uptake.
The accelerating deployments are made possible by a flurry of interconnected trends. The demand for EV batteries has incentivized a massive build-out in production capacity, which reduces the cost of batteries for grid applications.
Read more: Greentechmedia