The demand for high-energy-density batteries is expected to surge to meet the needs of the growing number of utility-scale solar plants, and revenues for high-energy-density batteries for solar power storage are expected to reach $763 million by 2016, according to a new report from NanoMarkets.
Solar power plants are already being heavily promoted by large solar panel firms in anticipation of lowered photovoltaic (PV) subsidies for consumers, the report says, and the solar energy industry is expected to use $953 million in energy-storage systems in 2016, rising to $1.5 billion in 2018.
In the wake of reduced feed-in tariffs for PV, large commercial users will want to better manage the energy they generate and sell back to utilities, the report adds. Therefore, energy storage will become a key part of this new management effort, and this trend will help take sales of lead-acid and lead-carbon batteries for solar power storage to $465 million by 2016.
The efforts toward re-engineering the lithium-ion battery to serve the smart grid are already showing signs of paying off in early solar energy-storage projects. By 2016, sales of lithium-ion and related batteries for solar energy storage will be worth $274 million, NanoMarkets says.
The report analyzes and quantifies the opportunities for firms seeking to understand the opportunities created by energy-storage technologies in the solar power sector, and both PV and concentrating solar power are covered. It provides an analysis of the markets in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan, China and India, with eight-year forecasts of energy storage sold into the solar sector for each of these countries/regions, as well as worldwide.
These forecasts are broken down by major energy-storage technologies in both volume and value terms. The report also includes discussions of major solar-related storage projects around the world and the major firms to watch in the space.
