Page - 163 - in Water, Energy, and Environment - A Primer

expanding rapidly. $230/kWh has been identified as the price point at which battery storagewins out over conventional fossil fuel generation. This cost point should be reached in markets within the next fewyears, and is expected to decrease further to $100/kWh. Significant market growth is anticipated in storage of solar-generated electricity by households and businesses, utility-scale applications, and use in electric and hybrid-electric vehicles. The market research firm HIS expects the energy storage market to increase from its 2017 installation rate of 6 GWtoan annual installation rate of over 40GWby2022. 9.5 FUNDAMENTALCHANGE What is becoming increasingly clear is that energy storage is bringing fundamental change to the electrical energy system. Over the past century and more, we developed electrical grids throughout the world that immediately consumed what they produced, and managed that by overproducing a bit to make sure that backup exists in case of unforeseen outages.However, if you have energy storage there is no need to overproduce and no need for backup reserves. It allows you to store electricity anduse it as needed. Energystorage 163