Energy Storage

With the growing population of plug-in electric vehicles (EVs), the charging infrastructure industry is also progressing quickly to meet the ever-increasing demand for recharging the EV batteries.

While Li-ion batteries have totally conquered the electric-vehicle industry, and currently dominating the energy storage sector as well, the redox flow batteries are silently (but not too much) taking their share of the stationary energy storage market.

IDTechEx forecasts exponential growth to a huge $350 billion in 2040 for clean microgrids. It will be driven by legislation, cost, increasing problems with national grids and many new applications. Electrifying mines to farms and transport helps too.

The new IDTechEx report, "Zero-Emission Electric Vehicle Charging: Off-Grid 2020-2040" examines how the electric vehicle business is finding it profitable to respond to criticism that clean vehicles should not be charged with fossil fuel electricity.

IDTechEx forecast Li-ion demand to grow almost 10-fold from 2020-2030, but can supply meet this demand? Automotive manufacturers the world over are pledging to electrify their fleets.

An increasing number of news articles about "Redox Flow Batteries" are present on the web. This technology, mostly adopted in on-grid and off-grid applications, has been studied for the last 50 years, and it is currently being commercialized (most of the time) in a containerized size, for medium- and large-scale applications.

The pandemic infection of COVID-19 has led to the lockdown of a considerable number of cities, leading to reduced pollution activity. With the large number of renewable energy sources employed in the last decades to decarbonise the energy sector, a growing number of energy storage devices have been coupled with renewable energy sources.

In 2020 vessel owners have had to deal with an 'emissions control world' for the first time. Unlike most other mobility sectors, which predominantly tend to switch partly or completely to a traction battery in order to meet emissions targets, a mixture of solutions have a role to play for boats and ships.

The redox flow battery market is growing. After more than 40 years of research, and 20 years of testing and demonstration projects, the flow batteries are now technologically ready to compete on the energy storage market. With a forecasted CAGR of 30% in the next years, this technology is looking to have all the characteristics to address each segment of the energy storage market, from residential to grid scale application.

Electrics and robotics squares the circle of seeking a wider variety of depleting materials in nastier, more remote places from the seafloor to four kilometres underground, up remote mountains and later outer space. Zero-emission microgrids on-site, sensors everywhere and new information and communications technology lubricate the process.