Besides increasing the range of their vehicles, electric car manufacturers are giving priority to reducing charging times. However, charging times depend not only on the configuration of the electric vehicle, but on the output of the charging station as well. While domestic wall boxes offer charging power of between 3 and 22 kilowatts depending on the model, high-speed charging stations have outputs of around 50 kilowatts. Since the launch of Tesla’s 120-kilowatt Supercharger, charging stations have been on the agenda for automobile manufacturers too. In fact, Porsche is on the verge of raising the bar considerably higher in this area – with talk of a staggering 320 kilowatts of charging power!
Buffer storage units can provide local reinforcement for the existing power grid and, in the right conditions, should dispense with the need for considerably more expensive development work on the grid to enable the connection of high-speed charging stations.
Source: Akasol GmbH
There is currently the risk of a bottleneck affecting the availability of battery cells for electric vehicles and stationary storage systems. This is because the cells fitted in storage devices in Europe are predominantly manufactured in China and Korea and supplied to wherever they can command the highest prices. In light of this situation, the manufacturers of electricity storage systems want to avoid depending on Asian suppliers alone by expanding cell manufacturing capacities within Europe. To this end, a consortium of 19 industrial companies and research institutes set up TerraE Holding in 2017 in order to collaborate on research and development work focusing on the mass production of battery cells. This January the consortium established the Fab4Lib research project, in order to investigate topics such as autonomous energy infrastructure, cell design, innovative production processes and materials. The aim is to construct a lithium-ion cell factory with an annual production capacity of 34 gigawatt hours by 2028.
And TerraE is not the only initiative of its kind in Europe...
The market for electricity storage has grown rapidly in recent years and has gained international momentum - for example in the USA, the United Kingdom and Australia. In Germany alone, according to figures from the German Solar Industry Association, 30,000 new solar energy storage units were installed last year – a tripling within three years.
The booming international market for e-mobility and storage systems is generating concerns that demand for lithium-ion battery cells for these applications could exceed the available resources. But lithium-ion batteries are not the only option when it comes to local or mobile electricity storage.
Since the upturn in renewable energies, electricity supply has been undergoing a global transformation. Electricity which is generated locally and renewably should be distributed intelligently, stored efficiently and consumed sensibly – whether in private homes, the public grid or transportation.
Throughout the world, electricity storage systems serve to bridge the gap between power generation from fluctuating renewable sources and power consumption, which varies throughout the day and the year. The process of globalization, which occurred in the wind and solar industries years ago, is now underway in the energy storage industry, where companies are establishing subsidiaries in emerging storage markets, joining forces with local partners, tapping into new markets and increasing their export quotas.