Batteries

• [New] The average price of a lithium battery that was over US $1000 in 2010 has fallen to a mere US $137 per kilowatt-hour and will come down to less than $100 in next three years.
• [New] Back in 2018, Mercedes-Benz owner Daimler outlined plans to purchase more than £18bn worth of electric vehicle (EV) battery cells by 2030.
• [New] Lithium-ion batteries are expected to be in production by the end of 2023.
• [New] Enel's 350 MW wind farm in Texas, coupled with some 137 MW of battery storage, is the Italian utility's third hybrid project in the United States and will start operation in the first half of 2022.
• [New] T & E calculates that there will be 460 GWh (in 2025) and 700 GWh (2030) of battery production in Europe - enough to meet the demand of electric cars.
• [New] Technological advancements will drive down the amount of lithium required to make an EV battery by half over the next decade.
• [New] The Ultium battery energy has range options from 50-200 kWh, which GM estimates will provide a range of up to 400 miles or more on a full charge.
• [New] General Motors Co. wants to sell 1 million electric vehicles by 2025, but to get there its leaders say it will have to ease two top concerns of drivers: EV cost and battery range anxiety.
• [New] Sales of new energy vehicles (NEVs), including pure battery electric vehicles as well as plug-in hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, are expected to make up 20% of China's overall annual auto sales by 2025.
• [New] In January, Israeli firm StoreDot unveiled its new lithium-ion car battery, which it claims can be fully recharged from empty in just five minutes, a development that could eliminate range anxiety.
• [New] The 350 MW / 450 MWh utility-scale battery storage will gain funding from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to the tune of $160 million.
• [New] Tesla is currently manufacturing a new type of battery at its pilot plant on Cato Road, Fremont, and plans to increase the annual production of the battery line to 10 GWh by the end of 2021.
• [New] A Stanford spinout, QuantumScape is one of many companies working on solid-state batteries, which replace the liquid electrolyte found in lithium-ion batteries with a solid material that could help increase energy density, allow faster charging, and reduce the risk of fire.
• [New] The quantity of batteries needed equals a decade's worth of the entire world's production, at a cost well north of $400 billion, an amount of money that could build enough nuclear plants to power the entire Texas grid for the next century, not just a few days.
• [New] The cost of EV car batteries will drop 50% by 2050 and their energy density will double.
• [New] The majority of Dominion's scenarios included large blocks of solar and solar-plus-battery-storage added between 2030 and 2048, with the potential to add 2,000 MW of solar from 2026 to 2048, up from the 973 MW of utility-scale solar already contracted, as well as 700 to 900 MW of battery storage.
• [New] The combined markets in India for solar PV modules, wind turbines, lithium-ion batteries and water electrolysers is expected to grow over $40 billion per year by 2040.
• [New] Vaccines could feature in the US-China competition over global standards, which already encompasses artificial intelligence, smart cities, and lithium batteries.
• [New] Unlike Tesla, Hyundai is offering the different drivetrain options on both battery packs, which are 58 kWh for the Standard Range, and for the Long Range, it will 72.6 kWh except in North America, where Hyundai will make the Ioniq 5's Long Range battery pack 77.4 kWh.
• French renewable energy and battery storage developer Neoen has landed $160 million in finance from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to built what will be - at least for a short while - the biggest lithium ion battery in Australia.

Last updated: 07 March 2021