Page | 004 2. Summary
Most grid-scale battery-based energy storage systems use rechargeable lithium-ion battery technology. This is a similar technology to that used in smartphones and electric cars but aggregated at scale to deliver much greater electricity storage capability.
They are considered one of the most promising types of grid-scale energy storage and a recent forecast from Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimated that the global energy storage market is expected to attract $620 billion in investment over the next 22 years.2 It is also projected that global energy storage deployments will grow thirteenfold over the next six years, from a 12 GWh market in 2018 to a 158 GWh market in 2024.3
While there are other types of battery-based energy storage systems, these are predominantly at an early development stage. As these other technologies mature and potentially see a take-up in the Irish market, ESI will continue to monitor developments and will formulate an appropriate position on safety in relation to other types of storage system as needs arise.
The focus of this paper will be on lithium-ion based battery storage systems and how fire and thermal event risk prevention and management is currently being addressed in the storage industry.
The key takeaways from this analysis are highlighted below:
• Lithium-ion batteries have been widely used for the last 50 years, they are a proven and safe technology;
• There are over 8.7 million fully battery-based Electric and Plug-in Hybrid cars, 4.68 billion mobile phones and 12 GWh of lithium-ion grid-scale battery energy storage systems (equivalent to a further 1.2 billion iPhones) already used safely around the world;
• Grid-scale batteries typically use a slightly different type of lithium-ion chemistry to that of consumer electronics such as mobile phones or laptops (detailed further in Section 3.1).
• The main reasons why lithium-ion technology is used so widely are:
➢ They are energy dense (i.e. they can hold a large amount of energy relative to their
size);
➢ They hold their charge relatively well compared to other battery types, for instance a lithium-ion battery pack loses only about 5 per cent of its charge per month, roughly a quarter of the rate for Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries;
➢ You do not have to completely discharge them before recharging, as with some other battery types;
➢ Lithium-ion batteries can handle hundreds of charge/discharge cycles;
➢ Their relative costs are lower than other battery types.
2 https://about.bnef.com/blog/energy-storage-620-billion-investment-opportunity-2040/
3 https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/global-energy-storage-to-hit-158-gigawatt-hours-by-2024-with-u-s-and- china
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