ORIGINAL REPORTING: Why battery storage is 'just about ready to take off'

Why battery storage is 'just about ready to take off' ; Costs are dropping, deployments are accelerating, and utilities are paying attention

Herman K. Trabish, October 13, 2015 (Utility Dive)

Battery storage is gathering momentum in the U.S. market thanks to rapidly evolving technologies and falling costs and batteries are rapidly becoming the dominant form of energy storage both at the grid and end-user levels, and utilities are likely to play an important role in its further growth. Utility leaders are increasingly seeing how storage can be dropped into strategic places in the power system and battery storage technology appears to be inching closer to a “sweet spot” that will likely result in falling prices, while accelerating deployment through the end of this decade.

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Battery prices have declined more than 50% since 2010 and prices and costs continue falling as technologies improve. More mature storage technologies like pumped hydro (PHS), compressed air (CAES), or the molten salts used with concentrating solar (CSP) are site-dependent based geology or geography. Battery storage is less limited by location. The price of the power supplied by lithium-ion batteries has been reported at between $1,000 per kW to $2,000 per kW, the current price of power from CAES facilities at $1,600 to $2,200 per kW, PHS at $1,200 to $2,100 per kW, and flywheel storage at $2,100 to $2,600 per kW. click here for more

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