Escape from Batteries Creates Large New Markets milliWh-GWh: Forecasts in 40 lines, Technologies 2025-2045

Battery-free storage will quintuple to become a $250 billion business in 20 years

There is growth in the traditional forms - supercapacitors, flywheel generators and pumped hydro. However, most of the growth comes from a host of new forms. Lithium-ion capacitors are now seen in electromagnetic weapons, thermonuclear reactors and mining vehicles. Tantalum hybrid capacitors further penetrate military aircraft applications such as pulsed radar. Massive grid storage is being built based on lifting blocks, underground pumped hydro, compressed air and liquid gas, heat pump thermal storage. With most batteries, to get GWh you just buy more, whereas all alternatives have great economy of scale, they are all non-flammable and they have little or no fade and self-leakage. They better meet the new need of wind and solar power being feeble for a month at a time.

How to manage with little or no storage

The report also covers the elimination of storage as seen in next solar desalination, some drones and some planned 6G Communications devices. Add the in-between option of battery-free sensors, building controls and IOT nodes with energy harvesting sold by Dracula, EnOcean, 8Power and others.

Do not make batteries your first choice

Electronics and electrical designers now first consider if they need batteries - from chip to power station - because the new battery-free options are often far better. This report is their essential reference, assessing hundreds of companies that can now supply and the remarkable new research advances through 2024.

It answers questions such as:

• Gaps in the market?
• Emerging competition?
• Full list of technology options?
• 2024 research pipeline analysis?
• Technology sweet spots by parameter?
• Research appraisals by technology?
• Market forecasts by value and GWh 2025-2045?
• Technology readiness and potential improvement?
• Technology parameters compared against each other?
• Market drivers and forecasts of background parameters?
• Potential winners and losers by company and technology?
• Technologies compared by numbers GW, GWh, delay, duration, etc.?
• Appraisal of proponents, your prospective partners and acquisitions?
• Evolving market needs and technology milestones in roadmaps by year 2025-2045?

Report findings

The Executive Summary and Conclusions (39 pages) is the quick read, with many new infograms and 40 forecast lines with explanation. One image is “Lithium-ion capacitor LIC market positioning by energy density spectrum” showing images of applications over a range of energy density and cycle life. Another shows latest grid and off-grid storage projects - duration vs power - for six battery-free forms compared with battery versions.

Chapter 2. Introduction (7 pages) explains battery limitations, how lithium-ion battery fires are ongoing with many 2024 examples, electrification megatrends, battery adoption, battery elimination. See implications for storage 2025 - 2045: batteries will lose share yet remain the largest value market.

The rest of the report is extremely detailed, starting with a chapter on how to minimise or eliminate storage. Other chapters deep-dive into battery-free storage, electrostatic, mechanical, thermal, chemical - spanning microWh to GWh, electronics to heavy engineering, pulse to one year of storage. See this formidable virtuosity increasing to replace many batteries and do what batteries can never achieve but realise there is inability impact some other battery applications.

The 63 pages of Chapter 3 concern “Systems that eliminate batteries: backscatter (EAS, RFID, 6G SWIPT), battery elimination circuits, self-powering ultra-low-power circuits and sensors, demand and supply management”. Navigate the jargon such as Electronic Article Surveillance EAS, passive RFID, SWIPT, AmBC, CD-ZED for 6G Communications, V2G, V2H, V2V and vehicle charging directly from solar panels. 13 primary energy harvesting technologies are compared. See examples of battery-free desalinators, cameras, drones, IOT nodes and the significance of 25 research advances through 2024.

Chapter 4. “Electrostatic storage: Supercapacitors, pseudocapacitors, lithium-ion capacitors, other BSH” (119 pages) spans activities of 103 companies compared in ten columns, a flood of important research advances in 2024, and a very wide variety of applications emerging. That spans aerospace, electric vehicles: AGV, material handling, car, truck, bus, tram, train, grid, microgrid, peak shaving, renewable energy, uninterrupted power supplies, medical and wearables, data centers, welding, laser cannon, railgun, pulsed linear accelerator weapon, capacitor-supercapacitor hybrids in radar. All have growth ahead but battery-supercapacitor hybrids have the greatest potential 2025-2045.

In electricity generation, your solar house will continue to have a battery. At the other extreme, national and continental grids will suffer massive earthworks and massive delays to get the very lowest levelised cost of storage LCOS up to months. However, there is a very large intermediate requirement emerging from the strong trend to factories, towns and islands being off-grid or capable of being off grid using wind and solar power for around 100MW. They prefer no long delays or major earthworks. Capital cost and long life, low maintenance, small footprint matter here.

New redox flow batteries serve well potentially up to one month storage but they have competition from the subject of Chapter 5. “Liquefied gas energy storage LGES: Liquid air LAES or CO2” (22 pages, 5 companies). See SWOT appraisals, parameter comparisons and a niche opportunity in grids as well.

Chapter 6. Compressed air CAES (59 pages) covers the main competitor for pumped hydro grid storage as batteries fail to keep up with ever more wind and solar power demanding ever longer storage duration. Appraise 13 participants, strong research advances and major orders in 2024. Agree with the US Department of Energy that CAES will have one of the lowest LCOS and a splendid lack of expensive or toxic materials?

Chapter 7. “Mechanical storage: Advanced pumped hydro APHES, solid gravity energy storage SGES, flywheels for electricity-to-electricity” (90 pages) delves into a flood of 2024 research, 12 companies, many options. It sees greatest potential in APHES, a large system pumping water into mines being significant in 2024, then SGES for mainstream grid requirements. Flywheels tend to lose out to supercapacitors and their variants for high power density and pulse applications.

Chapter 8. “Hydrogen and other chemical intermediary LDES” (55 pages) reports potentially a very large market extending up to seasonal storage because it could store 10GWh levels underground. However, with only one small minigrid being prepared with tank hydrogen, the scope for extreme arguments for and against is considerable. Of possible chemical intermediaries, only hydrogen has a chance, mostly in salt caverns, but leakage is considerable, causing global warming, and efficiency very poor. Some will be built. Then we shall know the parameters.

Chapter 9. “Thermal energy storage for delayed electricity ETES” reports heating rocks then making steam for turbine generation of electricity has been a failure but 2024 research and the activity of several companies has led to one major installation using heat pumps in thermal storage and there is a wild card of white heat reconverted using photovoltaics. Thermal may be a niche grid/ minigrid storage opportunity.