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Energy systems around the world have started going through rapid and profound transformations. Electric vehicles are breaking into the mainstream, and millions of wind and solar farms are replacing fossil fuel power plants. Both developments create fundamental challenges for the security of electricity supply. Energy storage could resolve these and drive cost-effective deep decarbonization. As a result, the storage industry is projected to grow to hundreds of times its current size in the coming decades.

Businesses, policymakers and academics need to assess the economic case for energy storage and the future roles it will play. This is complicated by rapidly falling investment costs, the wide range of technologies, and the vast array of use cases for energy storage.

Oliver Schmidt and Iain Staffell introduce an innovative, comprehensive toolkit required for assessing how the benefits of energy storage stack up against its costs. They give sharp insights on future prices, lifetime costs, technology competitiveness, profitability, and market size based on this toolkit. These are complemented by clear and authoritative explanations of the underlying datasets and methods. Worked examples and an easy-to-access online tool further empower readers to conduct their own assessments with custom data. Various frequently asked questions provide real-world context and bust some of the most prevalent myths about energy storage.

This book is a must-have for both decision-makers who require key insights into the energy storage business and practitioners who want to perform their own analyses on the current and future cost and value of energy storage.

Evolution of Energy Storage Competitiveness

Play Video

This animation shows the most competitive storage technologies across all applications:

Colours represent the technologies with the lowest lifetime cost
Axes for discharge duration and cycle frequency cover continuous balancing applications (bottom right) up to inter-seasonal storage (top left)
Shading indicates how strong the cost advantage is over second cheapest tech

The evolution accounts for projected investment cost reductions. These are based on statistically-derived cost reduction curves for each technology and are published in "Monetizing Energy Storage".

Create your own version of the graph on www.EnergyStorage.ninja

The Storage.ninja enables you to determine the levelized cost of storage (LCOS) and annuitized capacity cost (ACC) for any technology in any application. You can also choose from pre-defined technologies and applications.

The ninja uses a peer-reviewed model to calculate LCOS and ACC, but let's you decide on the input parameters. The respective publication is here:

Schmidt, O., Melchior, S., Hawkes, A., & Staffell, I. (2019). Projecting the Future Levelized Cost of Electricity Storage Technologies. Joule, 3, 1–20.

Database on price reductions

This dataset provides data on cumulative deployed capacity and product price (i.e., investment cost) for electrical energy storage technologies.

It allows to construct experience curves (or cost-reduction curves), which can be used to:

project future investment cost ranges for storage technologies

determine investment requirements in technology deployment to achieve cost targets

analyse economic competitivenss of storage technologies in distinct applications

(Click on the image to download the data)

Energy storage maps and databases

There is a range of useful open access energy storage maps and databases! In addition to location, they often provide details on technology, energy and power capacity and use case of specific energy storage projects around the world (sometimes even financial details).

Below is a compilation of theses maps and databases for stationary storage systems (utility-scale, residential and C&I) and for electricity storage in transport applications (e.g., marine).

Please do get in touch if you know of any other!

Global

All technologies: The DOE Global Energy Storage Database covers >1,600 grid-level energy storage projects worldwide
All technologies: OpenInfraMap shows energy and telecom infrastructure, including utility-scale storage systems - globally!
Lead-acid batteries: The consortium for battery innovation compiled a map of global lead-acid battery storage projects
Water reservoirs: ResourceWatch is a powerful global map on everything, including water reservoirs
Pumped hydro: The AREMI map by the Australian Government has details about all pumped hydro storage plants in the world
Pumped hydro: Pumped storage tracking tool of the International Hydropower Association
Redox-flow batteries: IFBF map of flow battery projects around the world with information on technology, power, energy and company
Hydrogen: A regularly updated compendium of global low-carbon hydrogen projects and their status by Pillsbury Law
Residential batteries (Sonnen): Sonnen Globe provides a look at location and capacity of their residential storage systems
Charging infrastructure: The open charge map shows EV charging stations and their power capacity - globally
Marine batteries: Map and database by DNV GL showing number of ships with battery-electric propulsion by ship type (free registration)
Electric vehicles: Charts and data on the global EV stock and related infrastructure by the International Energy Agency

Europe

All technologies: Map and database by the European Commission characterizes grid-level energy storage facilities in the EU-28
All technologies: This database by the European Commission tracks installed capacity of 'behind-the-meter' systems per country
Gas storage: The AGSI+ aggregated gas storage inventory publishes operational data of Europe's gas storage facilities
Hydrogen: Entsog's interactive map covers renewable and low-carbon hydrogen projects in Europe
Residential batteries (E3DC): Deutschland Live tracks installations of E3DC's systems, including live operational data

United States

All technologies: The EIA's electricity infrastructure database also lists location, technology, use case of utility-scale battery systems

Germany

All technologies: The Marktstammdatenregister is a database that tracks location, technology, size of most storage systems
Batteries: Database by Forschungszentrum Jülich on utility-scale storage systems in Germany
Batteries: ISEA reseach centre at RWTH Aachen tracks battery installations of all types throughout Germany
Power-to-gas: Interactive DVGW map with details on all power-to-gas installations in Germany
Pumped hydro: This database by Forschungszentrum Jülich has details on all German pumped hydro plants

and finally... the coolest card game on energy storage technologies :)

Renewables.ninja allows you to run simulations of the hourly power output from wind and solar power plants located anywhere in the world. This tool makes scientific-quality weather and energy data available to a wider community.

The ninja works by taking weather data from global reanalysis models and satellite observations:

NASA MERRA reanalysis
CM-SAF's SARAH dataset

The Renewables.ninja is a collaboration between Stefan Pfenninger and Iain Staffell, who both research the effects of integrating renewable technologies into our energy systems.