Energy Storage Poised For Breakout - Study

[jpak]

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/16124

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The following are some of the predictions made in the report:

The transportation energy storage market will grow from $12.9 billion last year to $19.9 billion in 2012, benefiting companies like Matsushita Electric and LG Chem.

Fuel cells will "return from the dead." Commercial sales will rise from $92 million in 2007 to $1.8 billion in 2012, driven almost entirely by new applications in residential combined heat and power systems and distributed generation deployments.

Bulk energy storage for utilities--shifting large amounts of energy from excess production times to peak usage times – presents the biggest potential opportunity of all markets studied: If even 10% of installed wind power plants adopted large-scale energy storage, the market would hit $50 billion. However, utility companies’ risk aversion and long planning cycles will sharply limit market size through 2012 to only $600 million.

After conquering the consumer electronics market, lithium-ion batteries will make similar inroads in the portable and transportation markets--going from $6.8 billion in 2007 sales to $16.9 billion in 2012. Nickel metal hydride and nickel cadmium technologies will be almost completely wiped out in consumer electronics.

Expected IPOs from companies like A123Systems will drive venture capital, M&A, and IPO activity further upward in the next two years.
Wu also said flywheels will expand out from datacenter backup power to grid frequency regulation and new batteries made from zinc-bromide and vanadium redox flow, silver-zinc and zinc-air will find valuable niches.

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[NickB79]

1. Again????

With all the breakthrough discoveries from the 1970's onward, I can't walk 5 steps without tripping over a battery, flywheel, fuel cell full of solar-generated hydrogen, compressed-air-storage system, supercapacitor, or other energy storage medium :sarcasm:

[bhikkhu]

2. I agree, it is hard not to be a skeptic.

I grew up on the self-guided flying cars by last year predictions, and now I hardly drive at all if I can help it, and expect to walk much more next year than the last.

I also was one of the original investors in Plug Power, a fuel cell company when they went public. They were supposed to have a marketable product by 2001, and we are still waiting. The stock tanked, btw, and I got out whole by a bit of luck. I don't see why it is so hard to store energy efficiently, but one of these days we may be pleasantly surprised. The new V2G system - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid - seems promising in conjunction with electric vehicles, but the efficiencies of transmission, charging and storage are open to question.