The battery boom of 2024 as one of five trends in renewables

Energy storage is a key part of the solution to such grid constraints and is increasingly seen as part of the renewable energy equation. That was reflected in the launch of pv magazine’s ESS News platform in 2024, dedicated to energy storage news.

The sector has also seen its share of oversupply and price drops this year, with surprising reports of a fall below $50/kWh for two-hour battery systems made in China. Nameplate battery manufacturing capacity in China alone reached 2.2 TWh at the end of 2023, almost double the 1.2 TWh of global demand that analyst BloombergNEF (BNEF) is expecting for 2024.

Falling battery prices have stimulated demand, however. BNEF also reported that prices for complete, “turnkey” systems were down 43% from 2023, while the stationary storage market has risen 61%.

An increase in energy density was among the key trends in large-scale storage, as manufacturers innovated to squeeze more battery capacity into container-sized products. The move to 300 Ah-plus cells and 5 MWh containers happened faster than expected.

Regulators in many regions are also working on bringing in the conditions necessary to enable batteries to offer more services to the grid. That opens up more potential business models to battery operators. The promise to manage all of those opportunities and ensure owners get the most out of them saw the appearance of “revenue optimization” software packages as another key trend in 2024. In some markets, such as Germany, merchant battery revenues remain strong, in others, all eyes are on procurement exercises.

In Italy, everyone is awaiting the Storage Futures Market tender, while many other European countries have introduced capacity market auctions. In the United States, emerging routes to market have included PPAs and tolling contracts that incorporate energy storage assets.

There has also been noticeable growth in commercial battery installations, most often alongside solar generation capacity. Businesses are looking to renewables as a hedge against high energy prices and installers are looking to markets less encumbered by grid capacity challenges.

Read on for pv magazine’s five key trends of 2024, as we embark on 2025.