With demand for batteries set to rise dramatically in the coming decades, fueled by their adoption in the automotive and transport sectors, and for grid-connected energy storage, it is essential to establish sustainable ways to manage batteries at the end of their life. How will batteries be recycled and who will be responsible? Can batteries be utilized for second-life applications before being recycled? How will the business models for second-life applications and recycling work?
Electricity customers are increasingly adopting and deploying behind-the-meter distributed energy resources (DERs) to reduce energy costs and increase reliability. Both electric utilities and their customers are discovering new value streams with behind-the-meter energy storage and it is rapidly changing electricity markets. While solar has historically dominated the behind-the-meter DER landscape, battery energy storage demand is growing rapidly due to evolving policy and rate design and new, innovative products and applications developed for electricity markets. What will be the key business models enabling behind-the-meter storage? Who is best positioned to capture the value?
With over half of US states adopting renewable energy goals, and countries across the world setting ambitious renewable targets, the need for long-duration bulk storage is becoming pressing as evidenced by ever-increasing amounts of curtailed renewable electricity. Matching abundant, low-cost, renewable generation supply with demand throughout the year requires longer-duration storage, including multi-day and seasonal storage. Without significant deployment of long-duration storage, clean energy policy goals will not be met. What technologies will play the greatest role in providing long-duration storage? How can we best value the reliability provided by long-duration storage?