I have been studying the data on the new installations of grid-scale batteries in an article from Canary Media. I feel like the White Queen in Through the Looking Glass.  She was pleased to say she managed to believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast every day.

 

Based on data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the global amount of total installed grid-scale battery capacity grew by a factor of ten between 2015 and 2020 (from 1 to 10 GW), then it grew another ten times by 2023 (to 100 GW), and will grow another ten times by 2029 (reaching 1,000 GW).  That’s 25% per year growth, occurring mostly in the US and China.  There aren’t many physical assets that have ever grown that fast for that long.  The big railroad and steel boom of the 19th century was not that fast.  Even the oil boom driven by the automobile boom in the 20th century was not that fast.  Both were around 10% per year growth.  Wow!

 

Looking at this another way, the total global installed generating capacity in 2025 was about 9,500 GW.  In 2030, it is expected to be about 12,000 GW in conventional forecasts.  That is 4.7% per year growth. So battery installations will grow 5 times faster than overall generating capacity.  Of course, batteries do not generate energy; they just drink it in from some source (likely to be increasingly from renewables) and then give it back at a later time, but they lose 10-15% of it in the process.  So that means battery storage represents a significant amount of global energy consumption at the scale forecasted.

 

What does all this mean?  First, the stationary battery market would overwhelm the market for EV batteries.  Second, to support this kind of growth, batteries are going to have to get beyond lithium chemistries.  Third, battery prices are going to fall.  This much demand-pull is going to take production to a scale that will drive economies are inevitable.  Fourth, there will be more emphasis on round-trip efficiency to cut the losses.  Fifth, whatever efficiency, production, and cost gains occur in the stationary market will spill over into the EV market.

 

In sum, lots of changes are coming.  Whatever you are assuming about battery types, shapes, costs, and efficiencies right now, you are probably going to be wrong.  If you can manage to believe six impossible things before breakfast.