Energy storage: grasping the increasingly mature domestic lithium battery market opportunity

” With the decline in costs and the clearing of business and profit models, the deployment of lithium battery energy storage has become the choice of many companies, and it has also attracted more and more investors. So, what opportunities and challenges will the energy storage industry face? How should companies try to break the situation and take advantage of the situation to win in lithium energy storage? “

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Development prospects of lithium battery energy storage

Thanks to mature technology and large-scale applications, lithium battery energy storage represents the future development trend of electrochemical energy storage technology.

Mechanical and electrochemical energy storage is currently the most mature and largest energy storage technology. According to the classification of energy storage media, the current energy storage technology can be divided into five forms: electrochemical energy storage, mechanical energy storage, electromagnetic energy storage, chemical energy storage and cold/thermal energy storage:

• Electrochemical energy storage: including lithium-ion batteries, lead-acid batteries, etc. The main advantage is that it is convenient to use and not restricted by region
• Mechanical energy storage: mainly pumping water for energy storage, featuring large capacity and long life
• Electromagnetic energy storage: including superconducting energy storage and super capacitors, which have the disadvantage of higher cost
• Chemical energy storage: mainly hydrogen storage and synthetic fuels, with low energy conversion efficiency and potential safety hazards
• Cold/hot energy storage: there are thermochemical energy storage, phase change energy storage, etc., but the reliability is low and the application scenarios are limited

From the perspective of technological development maturity and scale, mechanical energy storage and electrochemical energy storage have the characteristics of high technological maturity and large-scale energy storage. Electromagnetic and chemical energy storage are still in the initial stage of technological development. Pumped water energy storage under mechanical energy storage is currently the most mature, low-cost and large-scale energy storage technology. Lithium battery energy storage under electrochemical energy storage represents the future development trend of global energy storage technology and has the characteristics of great development potential.

Lithium-ion battery energy storage systems have a wide range of application scenarios in the power industry. Li-ion energy storage application scenarios can be divided into three main types: power generation side, grid side and user side:

1. Power generation side: Energy storage power stations can store electricity during valleys and release electricity at peak times to fill the power gap during peak electricity consumption. Compared with the construction of gas and electricity to balance the volatility of renewable energy, lithium battery energy storage power stations have a short construction period, less investment, and flexible deployment, which is conducive to the consumption of new energy. For example, the Zhangjiakou wind and solar storage demonstration project combines 6 combined power generation methods of wind, solar, and storage with 4 functions such as smooth processing and tracking plan, among which the amount of wind curtailment can be reduced by about 20%.
2. Grid side: The energy storage power station is like a super-capacity “power bank” with short response time, which can realize large-scale storage and rapid release of electric energy. The energy storage system participates in power auxiliary services on the grid side, such as peak shaving, frequency modulation, and backup, to ensure the stable operation of the grid, especially for seasonal and temporal load gaps. However, according to the latest regulations of the National Development and Reform Commission, it is clarified that electric energy storage facilities shall not be included in the transmission and distribution price. This has led to the recent rumours that grid energy measurement and storage projects have been “stopped” by the State Grid, bringing many uncertainties to the grid-side market.
3. User side: Industry and commerce use user-side energy storage projects to store power during valley hours and use during peak hours to reduce electricity costs. In particular, if the charging station for electric vehicles matches the energy storage system, the peak-to-valley price difference can be used for arbitrage. Leading domestic charging operators, Star Charging, and China Putian have all launched pilot programs to verify energy storage charging stations or solar + The feasibility and synergy of energy storage charging stations.