Introduction:
Batteries are already ubiquitous in everyday life, surrounded as we are by countless electronic devices powered by them. Helped by this mass adoption in consumer electronic devices, batteries are now spreading into other, larger scale applications, key amongst them electric vehicles (EVs) and stationary
battery electricity storage systems (BESSs).
Content:
This report provides a brief introduction to BESSs. We cover the technology and its applications, as well as historical, current and potential future deployment. Here is the outline for the content of this report:
- Introduction
- Battery Basics
- Battery Electricity
- Storage Systems (BESSs)
- Lithium-ion Batteries, Types and its Applications
- BESS Applications and Use Cases
- Current BESS Market with Global and UK Markets Forecast
BESS & Summary:
BESSs can be used in a variety of distinct ways. Fundamentally though, they are a tool for providing low carbon, quick responding, short duration electricity system flexibility. Flexibility is something that is naturally being lost from electricity systems as the shift to low carbon electricity generation proceeds at
pace. Traditional thermal power plants are closing and weather dependent renewables are taking their place. Loss of flexibility makes it harder to keep electricity grids functioning and to do so at a reasonable price.
While by no means the only way of providing low carbon flexibility or implementing electricity storage, BESSs are one of the more powerful. Reasons for this include BESSs being rapidly deployable across a large number of potential sites, at a wide range of scales, and at an increasingly
competitive price.
Whilst we touch on the global market for BESSs, our focus in this report is on the UK, one of the leading European BESS markets. The UK recently became one of the first countries to set a legally binding net zero greenhouse gas emissions target. It is reasonable to assume that BESSs will play a key role in enabling this 2050 target to be met, alongside a hefty build out in renewables. In the process, National Grid ESO forecasts that the UK’s BESS market could expand about 25 times in power and 50 times in energy terms by 2050.
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