In the push for a better battery, many in the industry are finding that the biggest challenges aren’t in chemistry and physics, but in regulations and market forces.
Currently, the opportunities for a cheaper, more efficient way to store electricity are booming. Market research firm IHS Inc. reported that grid-level energy storage is on track to reach 40 gigawatts in capacity by 2022, a hundredfold increase from 2013 (ClimateWire, Feb. 27).
Meanwhile, global light-duty electric vehicle sales are expected to increase from 2.1 million in 2014 to 6.3 million in 2020, according to Navigant Research.
Energy storage offers many new opportunities for improving efficiency and cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but using it effectively requires rethinking how we drive and how we use electricity, challenges that may be more difficult to clear than getting the price down or the capacity up.
Though battery innovations will help, there is plenty of room for improvement in policy, engineering and economies of scale.
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