The battery boom got an extra boost from the Environmental Protection Agency, with new regulations proposed this month to limit power-plant pollution. In a departure from previous rules, the EPA leaves it to individual states to determine how they will cut emissions. Some states will build more efficient buildings, others will shift from coal to cleaner-burning natural gas. An often-overlooked beneficiary is battery makers.
Batteries currently make up a small fraction of the total market for power storage. About 95 percent of the world's 25 gigawatts of stored energy is in the form of pumped hydro. That's a system where off-peak electricity is used to pump water uphill to a storage reservoir, where it can later be released downhill to produce energy to meet peak demand (pictures here).
Pumped hydro works well, but only for large-scale producers in areas with plenty of reservoir space, like West Virginia's Bath County station, the world's biggest. However, batteries are gaining ground as prices fall and as demand for small, portable solutions increases. Batteries are the fastest-growing storage business, accounting for 53 out of 57 projects currently under construction in the U.S., according to Bloomberg Industries analyst James Evans.
“The Gigafactory would open up battery storage packs not just for electric vehicles but also for power storage more generally," Evans said by phone. "The EPA rules are designed for the states to reduce their carbon emissions, and they can do that however they see fit. Energy storage is going to be one of the many tools states could potentially use to get there."
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