IRENA Envisions 160 GW Of Energy Storage By 2030
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) is planning a road map of 160 Gigawatts (GW) of battery storage installations worldwide by 2030. This would mean an increase of 4 times of battery storage in the next 15 years as compared to all the solar power installed to date.
IRENA announced that the road map would guide its 139 member states on what is needed to support the energy storage industry in the global expansion of renewable energy. The report, that will be launched this summer, comes on the back of another IRENA study of how the share of renewables in the global energy mix will be doubled from the current 20% to 40% by 2030, implying the need for energy storage solutions.
According to IRENA, the amount of lithium-ion battery-based storage is set to rise exponentially from 100MW in 2012 to 25GW in 2020, and to a further 150GW in 2030. A large proportion of this rise will come from the increasing electric vehicle penetration.
Renewable energy penetration is increasing rapidly and it is estimated that 400-600GW of storage capacity will be needed to support this increase. However, government projections have not kept up with true growth.
Although there are already a number of other existing electricity storage road maps, this road map focuses on international cooperation opportunities that will allow the exchange of best practices, cost reductions, in order to facilitate deployment for renewables at a large-scale.
If you want to know more about this and other topics directly from end users of energy storage technologies join us at one of these annual events: The Energy Storage World Forum (Grid Scale Applications), or The Residential Energy Storage Forum, or one of our Training Courses.
