Growth and Challenges for Batteries, Energy Storage and Hydrogen

The importance of battery and energy storage has become increasingly clear over the past 5 years. The electric vehicle industry has continued its growth trajectory despite considerable headwinds from Covid-19, semiconductor shortages, and increases in battery raw material prices. As such, investment into the Li-ion industry continues at a rapid pace. Improvements to performance are still highly sought after through the development of silicon anodes, anode-free cell designs, solid-state batteries, and cell-to-pack architectures. Li-ion battery price has also become an increasingly important consideration with battery and vehicle manufacturers looking to bring down costs. For example, battery manufacturers are looking to employ lower-cost LFP and manganese-rich cathodes to replace the more costly high-nickel NMC and NCA.

 

Reductions in energy storage costs are also important for the stationary sector, which IDTechEx forecast to be the fastest-growing application for Li-ion batteries. The stationary energy storage sector will also be better suited to utilising alternative storage technologies, such as Na-ion, redox flow batteries, or non-electrochemical options, such as compressed and liquified air storage. These technologies promise lower capital and levelized costs, easier scalability, and longer lifetimes. In addition, they offer a route away from using materials such as lithium, cobalt and nickel, which look set to be in short supply over the coming 5-10 years.

 

Hydrogen also looks set to play a key role in decarbonising the global economy through its use for energy transport, transport and, importantly, for decarbonising hard-to-abate industries such as steel or ammonia production. Having long promised to help decarbonise the global economy, growth in the clean hydrogen industry has been slow. However, ambitious policies from the EU, USA, India and others suggest significant growth in production and consumption of clean hydrogen, including green and blue hydrogen, is on the horizon.

 

IDTechEx research covers a variety of energy storage technologies, applications and markets. This webinar will introduce some of IDTechEx's research into the following areas:

 

 

To find out more about the IDTechEx energy storage portfolio, please visit www.IDTechEx.com/Research/ES.