The global market for battery materials could grow 9% annually in the next four years.

Analysts point to the increasing installation of storage systems with PV as a key driver. Mondragon Assembly Newsletter has covered previous reports predicting significant growth in PV and storage systems.

The global battery materials market is expected to grow 9% annually until 2022, primarily due to a rise in PV installation, a new report says. Analysts from research and consulting company Technavio have published a report suggesting the global rise in solar projects is having a significant impact on the supply chain of battery components.

The result will be renewables eating up more and more of the existing market for coal, gas and nuclear.

Overall, Henbest forecasts $548 billion will be invested in the battery market by 2050, of which two-thirds will be at the grid level and the rest behind the meter, by households and businesses. Mr. Goldie-Scott adds total annual investment in stationary energy storage in 2017 was around $2 billion.

The arrival of cheap battery storage will mean it becomes increasingly possible to finesse the delivery of electricity from wind and solar so that these technologies can help meet demand even when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.

According to the report, the Asia-Pacific region made up 65% of the market last year and will continue to top the standings for the next four years. Solar PV systems are increasingly being coupled with battery storage for improved grid integration and self-consumption, says the report. According to IHS Markit, 2018 could see record PV installations of 105 GW worldwide, a figure 11% higher than that seen in 2017.

Bloomberg NEF released a report this year which underlined the importance of storage for the renewable energy market. Since 2010, it calculates prices for lithium-ion storage have fallen 80% per MWh. Due to accelerating electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing in the 2020s, prices are expected to decline further.

Expanding on that point, Logan Goldie-Scott, Head of Energy Storage at BloombergNEF tells: “We expect battery pack prices to fall to $96/kWh by 2025, and $70/kWh by 2030. For battery cell manufacturing for EVs, we expect the leading countries based on today’s plant pipeline to be China, the U.S., Korea, and Japan. We expect further capacity in Europe to be announced over the coming years as well. Much of the activity in Europe has so far been in Eastern Europe.”