Energy storage to grow from 6GWh to over 635GWh by 2030

Throughout this period of growth the Asia Pacific region, led by China will dominate installations with 273GWh out of 635GWh, or some 43% of all energy storage capacity while the rest of Asia adds around 155MWh or 24.5%. Europe will install some 20% of total cumulative capacity, and the US just 67.7 or some 10.7% of total global capacity. MEA and Latin America will effectively be left behind with a few percentage points each.

The key technology will be Lithium Ion batteries which have massive momentum, brought about by the arrival of Electronic Vehicles. The top ten manufacturers alone have planned some 510GWh of annual global factory capacity by 2030, with 45% of global Lithium Ion manufacturing capacity located China and Europe and South Korea also acting as strongholds, mostly through partnerships with Chinese players.

There will be plenty of room for alternative energy storage technologies such as Vanadium Flow and large storage GWh-class devices including ETES, Liquid air and Energy Vault cranes based systems, but without the huge investment in Lithium Ion batteries, this segment would not take off quite so rapidly. Rethink Research estimates that 90% off the global energy storage market will remain Lithium based until a new technology emerges to lead, possibly by 2040.