By 2030, Levelized Cost of Storage (LCOS) below €100/MWh will be achievable through various innovative technologies. At present, conventional battery power storage has LCOS of around €200-400/MWh.
Assuming daily cycles and six hours discharge time at rated power, analysts find that most competitive technologies currently have LCOS of €50-200/MWh, though not all of them are suited to all PV projects.
Moreover, storage costs of electricity are estimated to fall by as much as 70% over the next 15 years. “Looking to 2030, it is particularly striking that battery technology becomes especially more competitive, with sodium (NaS), lead acid and lithium-ion technologies leading the way,” according to research carried out on behalf of the World Energy Council (WEC).
Yet, levelised costs are much higher for the wind storage case than the solar storage case because of the high sensitivity of the LCOS to the number of discharge cycles and the sub-optimal energy-to-power ratios required for the wind storage case as defined. The application assumes a two-day cycle structure and 24 hours discharge time at rated power.
“Few technologies appear attractive,” analysts remarked.
Assessing revenue streams
Authors of the report urge policy makers to familiarise themselves not only with levelised cost for generation technologies, but also with the issues of flexibility for generating and storage technologies.
“Assessing revenue is fundamentally more complex than showing a neat downward investment cost curve and involves stacking multiple uncertain revenue streams,” they stressed. Such revenue streams are context-specific, depending on the market, policy regime and availability of competing resources – hence generalisations and international comparisons are often misleading.