The future of the new energy industry is already determined, and the energy storage industry is flourishing in the face of favorable winds.
The intermittent nature of renewable energy generation creates a need for energy storage solutions to address its variability.
Electricity generation and utilize are simultaneously, in an electricity system, it is crucial to maintain dynamic balance between electricity generation and consumption. When there is excess electricity generation, it is necessary to convert the electrical energy into other forms such as chemical energy or potential energy for effective energy storage.
During the era of traditional energy sources, coal-fired power generation had controllability, enabling stable regulation of the power grid. As a result, the importance of energy storage was not apparent. However, with the advent of the energy revolution, the widespread adoption of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, the electricity supply is influenced by uncertain factors such as climate and geographical location. It becomes challenging to maintain a balance between supply and demand within the existing power grid system. Therefore, energy storage has become an indispensable component in the new energy grid system.
Figure 1: Energy storage technology promotes Kinetic energy transformation
Pump storage is account for the majority now while new energy storage grown rapidly
For the energy storage structure, pumped storage is the main energy storage structure in the world and China, accounting for 86.2% and 86.3% respectively. However, pumped storage is limited by geographical location. It takes a long time that pumped storage converts potential energy into mechanical energy and then into electrical energy Therefore, new energy storage with fast response and small limitations is gradually developing.
Electrochemical energy storage, has emerged as the mainstream form of new energy storage. Chinese suppliers have taken a leading position in the market.
Electrochemical energy storage technology features high energy density, high working voltage, long cycle life and fast charging speed, that’s why it occupies the mainstream position. With the advantages of excellent security property, high efficiency and long cycle, the application proportion of lithium batteries has increased year by year, and has been stable between 80% and 95% in recent five years. With a strong presence in the international leading lithium-ion battery industry, Chinese suppliers have increased their market share in the energy storage market. In 2020, China surpassed South Korea to become the world's largest supplier, with a market share of 69%. The leading advantage of Chinese suppliers continues to deepen.
Figure 2: Electrochemical energy storage is the mainstream new energy storage, and Chinese suppliers lead the market
The demanding for household energy storage is stabilizing and there is a trend towards integrated energy storage systems
Diversify application and stable demand
From the perspective of the entire power system, the application scenarios of energy storage can be divided into three main categories: generation-side energy storage, transmission and distribution-side energy storage, and consumption-side energy storage. Generation-side and transmission and distribution-side applications are primarily focused on the power grid. Energy storage is commonly used for load shifting, frequency regulation, integration of renewable energy sources, alleviating grid congestion, and deferring the need for infrastructure upgrades. For the consumption side, energy storage can be utilized for peak shaving, demand response, backup power supply, and enhancing the stability and reliability of electricity supply to end-users.
The demand users of power side scenarios are generally households, industry and commerce and public institutions, and the energy storage system is mainly used for economic needs such as spontaneous use of electricity, arbitrage of peak and off-peak price difference, management of capacity and electricity charges, and improvement of power supply reliability. According to BNEF statistics, in the global energy storage application, the household demand is basically stable between 20% and 30%, which is much higher the needs of industry and commerce.
Household energy storage profit model: tie with photovoltaics, increase the proportion of photovoltaics for self-use, and arbitrage the peak and off-peak difference
Household energy storage is generally used with roof photovoltaics, there are three main profit models:
Use by energy consumer and excess feed-in electrical grid: In the early stage of the policy, FIT electricity price was higher than household electricity price, and rooftop photovoltaic installation was promoted by "benchmark electricity price and feed-in everything that is generated to the grid". With the increase of household electricity and the gradual decline of FIT subsidies, the difference of electricity price is widening, and overseas rooftop photovoltaic users turn to configure energy storage to achieve a higher proportion of spontaneous self-use.
Peak and off-peak arbitrage: California, Australia, major European countries, China, etc. have time-of-use electricity price mechanism. Under this mechanism, the energy storage system charges the energy storage during the low period of the power grid at night and discharges during the peak period of power consumption during the day, so as to save the electricity cost by using the peak-valley price difference.
Virtual power plant: In this mode, distributed energy storage system integrators integrate distributed energy storage systems scattered on the user side based on the energy software management platform, analyze, control and optimize the operation of energy storage systems, and participate in power grid services to obtain application benefits.
New energy vehicles increased month-on-month, paying attention to semiconductor incremental opportunities brought by related vehicle companies. In December, most of China's new energy vehicles achieved a month-on-month improvement in sales: BYD 235,000, maintaining continuous growth; Except NETA, all the new powers in the auto-making industry maintained a month-on-month growth: 30,000 vehicles in AION, 21,000 vehicles in LI AUTO, 16,000 vehicles in NIO, 11,000 vehicles in ZEEKR and 10,000 vehicles in AITO.
Figure 3: There are three mainstream profit models for household energy storage
Most of hybrid photovoltaic and storage converter adopt DC coupling, which has higher comprehensive efficiency
At present, according to different household needs in the market, household energy storage systems can be mainly divided into hybrid photovoltaic and storage converter and energy storage split machines. Hybrid photovoltaic, is an integrated system by integrating photovoltaic inverter and bidirectional converter. The integrated mode mostly adopts DC coupling mode, which is ready to use, and realizes the integrated solution of "light + energy storage", which is suitable for the incremental market of synchronous installation of household photovoltaic and energy storage systems. The energy storage split machine is suitable for the installed household photovoltaic stock market, and the AC coupling mode is usually adopted internally, which is convenient for connecting with the photovoltaic inverter of the original photovoltaic system. The efficiency of DC coupling mode is significantly higher than that of AC coupling mode in daytime power generation and night power consumption, and this mode conforms to the power consumption habits of most contemporary families, with the efficiency of about 95% and 90% respectively.
Hybrid photovoltaic and storage converter is highly integrated, effectively reducing soft costs
NREL data shows that the hardware cost only accounts for less than 50% of the total cost of household energy storage system. Due to its highly integrated characteristics, the optical storage integrated machine does not need to install additional photovoltaic converters, which reduces the hardware cost on the one hand, saves one-time equipment investment on the other hand, simplifies installation, saves installation cost, facilitates after-sales maintenance, and effectively reduces subsequent soft costs. It is predicted that compared to separate solutions, integrated photovoltaic and energy storage systems can save approximately $155 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in costs. According to BNEF forecasts, the future reduction in soft costs will be much lower compared to lithium-ion batteries and inverters. As the hardware equipment costs for integrated and separate systems become similar, the soft cost advantages of integrated systems will become more prominent in the future.
Figure 4: Highly integrated of hybrid photovoltaic converter can effectively reduce soft cost
The global household energy storage market is experiencing a surge, with Europe taking the lead and the United States closely following
The global household energy storage market is experiencing a surge, with Europe taking the lead and the United States closely following. The installed residential energy storage in the world has increased steadily in recent years, with CAGR of 62.62% in five years, and the newly installed capacity in 2021 is about 6.4 GWh, up 116.23% year-on-year. According to statistics from Statista, the European market leads in terms of installed capacity for residential energy storage, accounting for approximately 40.38% of the global market in 2020. Germany holds a significant share of 25.16% in the European market. The United States and Japan closely follow, accounting for 23.65% and 17.88% respectively. Collectively, Europe, the United States, Japan, and Australia account for approximately 90% of the global market share.
The energy storage blue ocean is just beginning, while overseas household energy storage is experiencing a surge.-China exportsemi.com
