The future cost of electrical energy storage based on experience rates

O. Schmidt (), A. Hawkes, A. Gambhir and Iain Staffell
Additional contact information
O. Schmidt: Imperial College London, Grantham Institute—Climate Change and the Environment
A. Hawkes: Imperial College London
A. Gambhir: Imperial College London, Grantham Institute—Climate Change and the Environment

Nature Energy, 2017, vol. 2, issue 8, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Electrical energy storage could play a pivotal role in future low-carbon electricity systems, balancing inflexible or intermittent supply with demand. Cost projections are important for understanding this role, but data are scarce and uncertain. Here, we construct experience curves to project future prices for 11 electrical energy storage technologies. We find that, regardless of technology, capital costs are on a trajectory towards US$340 ± 60 kWh−1 for installed stationary systems and US$175 ± 25 kWh−1 for battery packs once 1 TWh of capacity is installed for each technology. Bottom-up assessment of material and production costs indicates this price range is not infeasible. Cumulative investments of US$175–510 billion would be needed for any technology to reach 1 TWh deployment, which could be achieved by 2027–2040 based on market growth projections. Finally, we explore how the derived rates of future cost reduction influence when storage becomes economically competitive in transport and residential applications. Thus, our experience-curve data set removes a barrier for further study by industry, policymakers and academics.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (223)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy2017110 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natene:v:2:y:2017:i:8:d:10.1038_nenergy.2017.110

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nenergy/

DOI: 10.1038/nenergy.2017.110

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Energy is currently edited by Fouad Khan

More articles in Nature Energy from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().