The global battery energy storage market will grow to 942GW by 2040, attracting $1.2 trillion in investment and representing 7% of installed capacity, according to a new report from BloombergNEF.
Growth will be driven by falling costs, which will see the capital cost of a utility-scale lithium-ion battery storage system sliding 52% between 2018 and 2030, the ‘Long-Term Energy Storage Outlook’ report said.
“This will transform the economic case for batteries in both the vehicle and the electricity sector,” BloombergNEF.
Nine markets – China, US, India, Japan, Germany, France, Australia, South Korea and the UK – will represent two-thirds of the installed capacity by 2040, it added.
South Korea will dominate the market in the near term, with the US taking the lead in the early 2020s, before being overtaken itself by China.
BloombergNEF energy storage analyst and co-author of the report Yayoi Sekine said: “We have become much more bullish about storage deployments since our last forecast a year ago.
“This is partly due to faster-than-expected falls in storage system costs, and partly to a greater focus on two emerging applications for the technology – electric vehicle charging, and energy access in remote regions.”
The majority of the battery demand will be for the electric vehicle market, with only 7% of demand coming from stationary sources, BloombergNEF added.