Energy storage market set to boom – but is Australia ready?

When the Howard Government doubled a rebate for solar power systems in 2007, no-one realised how quickly the spread of the technology would change Australia’s energy system. But the rising cost of power, the falling cost of solar technology and the enthusiasm of state and federal governments to help people take back control of their power bills proved decisive. The industry boom was unprecedented and thousands of new jobs were created. Our power grid will never look the same again.

The potential of energy storage in Australia is huge, whether it be helping householders to maximise the use of their own solar power, smoothing grid-based energy to manage Australia’s peak demand, or network-integrated storage helping to support electricity networks.

It’s increasingly easy to imagine a future in which battery storage is fully embedded into the network, driven by smart meters, integrated with distributed generation and technologies like electric cars, to create a fully interactive and intelligent grid.

Right now the energy storage market is already growing rapidly, and is set to transform the electricity industry. Tesla Motors is building a $US5 billion Gigafactory in the United States to make batteries cheaper. The foundations of a remarkable industry are already being assembled, and a huge range of business opportunities are beginning to present themselves.

Winfried Hoffmann predicts that average energy storage costs are likely to fall by 7% per year based on current learning curves. Solarpraxis/Andreas Schlegel Read more: http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/forecast-2030–stored-electricity-at-005-kwh_100016581/#ixzz3EfQ0BTg2

We must be ready to take advantage of the opportunities for innovation. If we don’t plan strategically for the growth of this industry, major barriers to investment will remain and consumers will end up confused or frustrated.

Two years ago the Clean Energy Council published a market sizing and policy barriers study on energy storage. A lot has happened since, but there has been little coordination of effort and no clear view of what needs to be done to fully unlock the potential of energy storage in Australia.

All that is about to change. The Clean Energy Council is launching our Australian Storage Industry Roadmap.

We have already begun work, with a cross-industry committee, on developing a formal Australian Standard for batteries, as well as cradle-to-grave guidelines for proper quality control and the recycling or disposal of storage systems.

Through a multi-million dollar project funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), we are doing extensive research into the technical and economic barriers to battery storage, and we’re developing an Australian-first Consumer Guide to Battery Storage to complement our popular Consumer Guide to Solar PV.

We’ll be working with the energy storage industry to develop pro-storage policies specifically tailored to the Australian political climate and the mechanics of our electricity market. And we strongly encourage energy storage companies and associated businesses to get involved through our Storage Advisory Group.

Through the roadmap process we will commence the first battery market industry survey to gather current data on the numbers and types of systems installed, as well as identifying any barriers that would stop existing solar companies adding storage devices to their list of products. Getting hold of even basic data and market intelligence on storage is very difficult compared to how easy it is to find out more about the spread of grid-connected solar power systems. The survey aims to address that.

Energy storage is approaching the tipping point that solar PV hit a few years ago. The scale and speed of that change caught everyone by surprise, but we can – and should – be much better prepared for the energy storage boom. Now is the time for the industry to work together to secure our future.

Kane Thornton is chief executive of the the Clean Energy Council

Comments

13 responses to “Energy storage market set to boom – but is Australia ready?”

  1. barrie harrop Avatar
    barrie harrop

    A boom here is 2–3 years away,too expensive right now once sector is in the 3–5 year payback period,then its action time for mass market adoption ,however get out investments in poles/wires now while you can.

    1. Peter F Avatar
      Peter F

      I tend to agree with your timing,
      However I think there will be a large number of people who will be happy to buy with longer payback periods. At current interest rates and inflation rates for power a 10-12 year payback period is probably still a financially viable investment and then there are the many people who are dying to stick it to the utilities

      1. barrie harrop Avatar
        barrie harrop

        Yes Peter, but these are not mass market people,once the scale/payback is right the flight from the grid will be frightening.

      2. eddierothmanisatool Avatar
        eddierothmanisatool

        agree. everyone of our customers is telling us we dont care about the price we just hate the incumbents and want to get off grid. the tesla powerwall although quite ordinary has drawn a line in the sand and is the iphone of batteries. we will sell and install it, but we have much more compelling products in our catalogue.

    2. eddierothmanisatool Avatar
      eddierothmanisatool

      one of the greatest short opportunities in 100 years. perhaps bigger than shorting subprime in 2006-7. which gentailer is most vulnerable do you think? ORG with their overleveraged LNG and declining retail business and stranded fossil assets.

  2. Ken Dyer Avatar
    Ken Dyer

    The cost of batteries is dropping. Li-on laptop battery costs have dropped 14% per year for the last 15 years. This is expected to continue for the forseeable future.

    Tesla use a modified Li-on battery in their cars.

    There are now trillion dollar industries investing in battery technology, IT, automotive and energy industries tripling the R&D investment.

    Since 2010, battery costs spread across those industries have decreased by 16% year on year.

    The new Tesla battery factory will double the amount of lithium ion batteries and will further reduce the cost of batteries by 30%.

    Source Tony Seba Harvard University keynote Addresses.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBkND76J91k

    1. Jacob Avatar
      Jacob

      I saw a couple of lectures by Mr Seba. Really eye opening stuff.

      The photo of a major street in NYC, full of horses, 10 years later, full of cars!

  3. sunoba Avatar
    sunoba

    For some details on the cost of battery storage, see latest post at http://www.sunoba.blogspot.com

  4. Jacob Avatar
    Jacob

    The Australian Military and Government buildings should be banned from using imported solar panels. This would give a leg up to locally made solar panels.

    1. john Avatar
      john

      There is only one Australian manufacturer left after one of the oil companies closed the other plant of a maker they took over one of the pioneers of this tech.

  5. John Saint-Smith Avatar
    John Saint-Smith

    Energy can be cheaply stored as heat. All you need is a large insulated bottle connected to a water supply that can be heated by an electric element. Enter the domestic hot water system. Instead of connecting it to the grid and night rate electricity, which is no longer cheap, why not connect it to a DC feed from increasingly cheap PV panels on the roof? Heat water with excess solar electricity during the day and you have solar hot water at night and in the morning before the sun comes up without the expense of a conventional solar hot water system.
    By reversing the usual ‘feed-in’ pattern of electricity use – timing slow cooking, washing and drying appliances to use solar power directly, the householder can effectively reduce dependence on increasingly expensive grid electricity.
    The next step, now just around the corner, is to add batteries, and go ex-grid.
    Finally, add more panels and an electric vehicle – a bicycle, mobility scooter, or even a car to exchange power with the house.

    1. eddierothmanisatool Avatar
      eddierothmanisatool

      spot on. twin element hot water cylinders are the transition storage medium till we see the 90% price falls in lithium over the next 5 years as we did in pv. bring on the death spiral, its time to tear the wires down.

  6. eddierothmanisatool Avatar
    eddierothmanisatool

    so they are going to spend multi millions to do an investigative study into the barriers to energy storage? wtf? as someone in the industry heres the barriers for no money down. 1. price. soon to be shattered by gigafactories around the world. 2 dinosaur incumbents who will head down the regulatory capture route as they are with solar feed in tariffs, thereby accelerating their own demise and demand for batteries creating positive feedback loops that also accelerated the overall death spiral. kane is actually a pretty nice guy but seriously the politics of the clean energy council favouring particular large players etc means that most of what they do and say is bullshit. 3. the market will sort this all out and mass defection is inevitable. kane start there and work backwards.

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