How Big Will the Battery Boom Get? Try $548 Billion, BNEF Says
Batteries will attract $548 billion in investments by 2050 as businesses push to use more clean energy.
(Bloomberg) -- Batteries will attract $548 billion in investments by 2050 as costs fall and homes and businesses push to use more clean energy.
That’s one of the conclusions of the New Energy Outlook released Tuesday by analysts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Batteries will become increasingly viable on the grid as demand for electric cars spurs manufacturing of lithium-ion systems, driving down prices.
Batteries will allow more solar and wind to meet demand -- even when the sun isn’t shining or wind isn’t blowing, helping end the era of fossil fuel dominance on the grid by mid-century, BNEF said. Battery prices are expected to fall to $70 a kilowatt-hour by 2030, down 67 percent from today, according to the report. BNEF expects 1,288 gigawatts of new batteries to be commissioned by 2050.
“It’s a matter of ‘when and how’ and not ‘if’ wind, solar and battery technologies will disrupt electricity delivery all over the world,” Seb Henbest, lead author the report, said in an interview.
To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Chediak in San Francisco at mchediak@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Doan at ldoan6@bloomberg.net, Joe Ryan, Will Wade
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.