00:00So which of these emerging methods is the most effective for energy storage?
00:04Well, I spoke to Kingsmill Bond energy strategist at Think Tank Ember.
00:08Well, in fact, we have a wonderful solution, which is batteries.
00:14So it's in fact the real storage mechanism for electricity is batteries.
00:20Battery storage deployment is doubling at the moment once every year and a half.
00:26And it's now grown to be larger in gigawatt terms, for example, than the old system, which was hydro pump
00:38storage.
00:38And batteries continues to grow extremely rapidly.
00:44So, yeah, it's really the main storage.
00:47The main story now in storage world is about battery storage.
00:52There are, of course, other technologies such as compressed air and salt cabins and other what they call Elders.
01:02And they're interesting, but they're all tiny compared to batteries.
01:06So do any of those alternative to batteries hold promise for the future?
01:12Yeah, I think so.
01:13I mean, it's actually quite hard to get very excited about all these other technologies when batteries are so much
01:22bigger and growing so much faster.
01:24But, yeah, I mean, as I say, compressed air and salt cabins are probably the top two.
01:29Then, of course, there are new battery technologies as well, such as some iron air batteries and flow batteries.
01:36And there are plenty of exciting new technologies which are coming and are going to be more and more required
01:44as we seek to balance a renewable-based system.
01:49Looking at batteries, then, how do you see that technology progressing?
01:54Batteries have been, as I say, doubling once every 13 months since 2000.
02:00And we expect that they will continue to grow extremely rapidly.
02:06So they'll continue.
02:07My assumption is they will continue to double the total deployment once every one to two years until at least
02:152030.
02:16So that's a number of doublings even this decade still to come, huge amounts of growth.
02:21And at the same time, they have a learning rate, that is to say, their costs fall by around 20
02:27% for every doubling of deployment.
02:30And therefore, we should expect to see costs continue to fall.
02:33I'm expecting to see battery storage costs more than half by 2030.
02:38So massive surge in growth, continue falling costs, and they continue to be the core technology the world needs in
02:46order to back up its wind and solar.
