As the price of lithium batteries rises, can other long-term energy storage technologies still compete with lithium-ion battery energy storage systems?

　　Haresh Kamath of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) said recently that as lithium-ion battery energy storage systems become more cost-competitive over longer durations, long-duration energy storage (LDES) technology may struggle to compete with lithium-ion batteries over the next decade. Battery energy storage systems compete.

　　(Invinity Energy Systems deploys a vanadium flow battery energy storage system at the Pivot Power energy super hub in Oxford, UK)

　　The surge in raw materials for lithium-ion batteries has made it a hot topic when long-duration energy storage systems from flow battery developers including Invinity Energy System and ESS Inc will be widely deployed. But with the widespread rollout of lithium-ion battery energy storage systems (BESS) at 4, 6, and even 8 hours, emerging long-duration energy storage technologies are at risk of deployment.

　　Kamath said, “While lithium-ion battery prices are increasing now, the cost of lithium-ion batteries will continue to decline in the long run. It is expected that by 2030, if needed, we may even 24 hours (duration) of storage. cost-effective lithium-ion batteries in the energy system. My sense is that many of the other proposed energy storage systems have not met their price targets and certainly not in terms of maturity. So, in the next ten In 2018, they will face the difficult challenge of competing with lithium-ion battery energy storage systems.”

　　For them, the only way to truly compete is to offer longer durations than lithium-ion battery energy storage systems offer. Not just 8 hours, it has to be competitive for 20 hours or 50 hours in duration, and once those numbers are hit, it's hard for Li-ion battery storage systems to compete.

　　He pointed out that larger-scale lithium-ion battery energy storage systems are very expensive because the unit cost of lithium-ion battery energy storage systems increases proportionally with duration. Longer-duration battery technologies (such as vanadium flow batteries and iron flow batteries) have larger marginal increases in cost with longer duration and are therefore more cost-competitive with increasing size.

　　There is no doubt that this recognition has indeed become the consensus of many energy storage system integrators. SES Power adopts a standardized, integrated and modular route for lithium-ion energy storage systems, which will help lithium-ion energy storage systems. The deployment is simpler, the monitoring is more comprehensive, and the cost is more advantageous. For example, we use 12V200Ah, 12V300Ah, 48V100Ah, 60V100Ah, 120V300Ah energy storage system modules of EVE, CATL, BYD square aluminum lithium iron phosphate batteries, almost all of these products are standardized and modular, and they all integrate RS485, CAN, etc. The communication protocol supports remote monitoring and operation, which can ensure the system compatibility, high speed and reliability.

　　These long-term energy storage developers said why the long-term energy storage market has not developed rapidly, which is related to up-front costs, regulations, policies and market revenue mechanisms. We can clearly see in California, the most mature energy storage market, the ability to support up to 20 long-duration energy storage projects in the state with $380 million in funding included in the state's recently released budget middle.webcam factory

　　The long-duration energy storage committee, established last year, said the long-duration energy storage market needs to develop rapidly. By 2040, it is expected that 1.5 to 2.5 TW of long-duration energy storage systems are likely to be deployed globally: 8 to 15 times the total installed capacity of energy storage systems cumulatively deployed today, although the committee acknowledges that energy storage system costs must be reduced by 60% to meet costs optimal.

　　The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) is doing a lot of research into the long-duration energy storage space and proving its value proposition exists. Kamath is not a proponent of lithium-ion battery energy storage systems, and he warned about the popularity of lithium-ion battery energy storage systems in the energy storage space.

　　"Lithium-ion batteries are becoming so popular and used in so many different ways," he said. "We don't get as much data as we want from these battery storage systems, and how well they're working. We've installed a lot of them. battery storage systems, but it’s not clear to what extent they’re being used. The data is still incomplete, and it’s very helpful in helping us judge whether this investment is the right one.”