Battery storage is growing at an unprecedented rate, but much more needs to be done (IEA)

The deployment of batteries coupled with wind or solar fields, photovoltaic roofs or even mini-grids, increased by 130% last year compared to 2022, adding 42 gigawatts to electricity systems around the world.

In transport, the deployment of batteries has increased by 40% (nearly 14 million new electric vehicles sold in 2023, compared to 3 million in 2020), according to this IEA report devoted to batteries.

“The electricity and transport sectors are two pillars intended to reduce CO2 emissions quickly enough to keep the possibility of global warming limited to 1,5°C” compared to the pre-industrial era, recalls the director of the AIE Fatih Birol, and “the batteries will be the foundation”.

In less than 15 years, their cost has fallen by more than 90%, underlines the agency.

“The solar photovoltaic-battery combination is today competitive with new Indian coal-fired power plants and in a few years, it will be less expensive than coal-fired power plants in China and gas power plants in the United States,” underlines Mr. Birol.

However, global storage capacity will have to be multiplied by almost six by 2030 if the world wants to keep its climate commitments, renewed at COP28 at the end of 2023 with a commitment to triple the deployment of renewable energies by 2030 .

Batteries represent 90% of the effort (the rest of the storage being essentially provided by “Step” type hydroelectric dams, “pumped storage energy stations”).

The need is 1.500 GW by 2030, according to the IEA.

This storage makes it possible to best deploy wind and solar energies which are intermittent in nature, by retaining the surplus electricity produced to reinject it at the appropriate time, during peak consumption, in the evening or when there is no wind.

But costs will have to fall further, underlines the IEA, which also calls for diversification of supply chains, from metals to manufacturing plants.

Most batteries are today produced in China, but 40% of announced projects are in advanced economies, the United States or Europe. If all these projects saw the light of day, they would almost cover the needs of these countries, the report adds.