Electric construction, agriculture, and mining (CAM) machines promise health, environmental, and productivity benefits, while also acting as long-term financial investments for companies. The battery market for CAM machines is expected to reach US$8 billion by 2034.

In this article, IDTechEx Research Director Dr Alex Holland takes a look at the falling battery costs and how this will affect the Li-ion battery market long term.

Li-ion batteries remain the dominant electrochemical energy storage technology in the global market. Other battery storage technologies, such as redox flow batteries, Na-ion batteries, and metal-air batteries, have continued to remain as emerging technologies with a limited volume of deployments in the last few years.

As global lithium demand increases and regulatory landscapes shift, DLE's (direct lithium extraction) role in the evolving battery supply chain merits closer examination. IDTechEx predicts DLE to disrupt the brine mining market, with a CAGR (compound growth rate) of 19.6%, making it the fastest-growing segment in the industry.

IDTechEx's report includes details on thin, flexible batteries for micro-power applications, and the gradual move towards sustainable alternatives.

With over 100 million electric vehicles (EVs) expected to reach end-of-life over the next two decades, IDTechEx's latest report predicts that the value of critical materials recovered annually by 2045 will surpass US$100B.

Thursday 26 September 2024 - Insights on the Li-ion Battery Market: Opportunities and Challenges Ahead. Recent trends and developments in the Li-ion market; Discussion on various chemistry choices being made; Key technology innovations and developments; Cost and price trends

Wednesday 25 September 2024 - Unlocking Lithium Brine Potential: The Role of Direct Lithium Extraction. Lithium Mining and Extraction: Fundamentals and Current Practices; Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE): A Comprehensive Overview; Sorbent-Based DLE Technology: In-Depth Exploration; Evolving Business Models in the DLE Market; Sustainability and Cost Benchmarks Across Lithium Extraction Methods; Lithium Market Outlook: Drivers, Challenges, and Emerging Trends in DLE

While there has been strong growth in the stationary battery sector, electric vehicles remain the key driver behind the Li-ion market, and electric cars will be the largest market for Li-ion batteries over the next 10 years. Although there are some regional concerns over the rate of EV adoption in 2024, sales of electric vehicles grew rapidly in 2022 and 2023, and the medium-long-term outlook for EV adoption remains strong.

Thursday 29 August 2024 - Applications of BESS for grid-scale and residential battery storage markets; Overview of global Li-ion battery storage market growth, regional activity, market dynamics and trends; Comparisons across battery storage technologies, and discussion on the current and future position of Li-ion in the energy storage market; Trends observed and analysis on these trends, including cell chemistry, energy density, safety, and thermal management in Li-ion battery storage technologies; IDTechEx's outlook and conclusions on the global Li-ion BESS market.

The key to wider adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) will be lower-cost models with a more approachable price point. The most expensive component of an EV is the battery pack. As well as increasing the energy density and reducing the cost of the battery cells, another avenue to cost reduction is through more efficient packaging of the cells.

Lithium is the lightest and smallest alkali metal in the periodic table and possesses a high electrochemical potential. These attributes make it attractive for use in batteries, as it can provide a high energy density per unit weight, with few viable substitutes. While lithium finds diverse applications in glass ceramics, lubricating greases, air treatment, and pharmaceuticals, batteries dominate its end-use segment.

On a global level, the decarbonization of heat energy methods is needed more and more as heating and cooling accounts for around 50% of energy consumption, with 30% being from industrial heating. 90% of these industrial heating processes include the use of fossil fuels, which leads to high global emissions from industrial processes alone. To meet net zero targets, things need to change.

Thursday 12 September 2024 - How Is Critical Material Recovery Unlocking a Multi-Billion Dollar Market? Introduction to critical materials and key application markets; Critical material sources and why secondary material streams are rapidly emerging; Critical material recovery technology trends and their application in secondary sources; Valuable lessons to learn from established critical platinum group metal and semiconductor recovery; IDTechEx's outlook and conclusions on emerging critical material recovery markets and key growth opportunities.

Multiple consumer electronics giants, including Apple, Samsung, and Nokia, have previously shown interest in flexible smartphones. Indeed, it naturally seems like the next step after foldable and curved smartphones have seen development and commercialization in the last decade. However, the path to fully flexible smartphones is far from simple, and the reward for successful development is ambiguous.

Sodium-ion batteries bring new opportunities for lower costs, greater sustainability, and safety into the battery market. With sodium being more widely available than lithium, concerns about energy security and supply-chain shortages can hopefully start to decrease for economies.

End-of-life equipment from automotives, electric vehicles, e-waste and decarbonized energy technologies are rapidly emerging secondary raw material sources for valuable critical materials. A new report from IDTechEx forecasts that US$110B of critical materials will be recovered annually from secondary sources by 2045, with a combined weight of over 3.3 million tonnes.

Demand for battery energy storage systems will continue to increase over the coming decade across key countries as the volume of renewable energy sources penetrating electricity grids continues to increase. Governments have continued to announce incentives and schemes to promote the growth of BESS, as well as announce and increase targets for both RES and battery and energy storage.

Major CCUS (carbon capture, utilization, and storage) players converged in Houston, Texas, in the last week of June for the 2024 iteration of the Carbon Capture Technology Expo North America. Co-located with the Hydrogen Technology Expo, the event boasted over 8000 attendees and 400 exhibitors - including IDTechEx.