Lithium Ion Becomes a Prominent Choice for Energy Storage

In recent years the rapid growth of different forms of renewable energies, such as wind power and solar PV, has made the need for rapid-response energy storage technologies rise. Global demand of electric vehicles, which are promoted intensively in several countries, added with conventional usage pushed up the need of total storage of energy as high as 139.15 GWH in 2016. The need of rapid development on battery technology is the reason to know which battery type is suitable to meet the needs of consumers.

Lithium Ion rechargeable, which was introduced by Sony Corporation in the early 1990s, is becoming the most important type for mobile electronics equipment. Research into several energy storage models has expanded to create and find the best battery type for small to big scale application. Every model of energy storage was tested. Safety parameter, reliability, life cycle, weight dimension and cost of production are at the core of energy storage for many points of view.

There are seven parameters that have been generated to identify the performance to classify battery technologies into three levels. Excellent, medium, and poor. The needs are batteries which are economically profitable, environmentally sustainable and socially acceptable. Battery shall shows its ability to provide backup power with optimal performance, affordable prices and is long lasting.

In today’s battery technology, nickel iron is the main competitors of Lithium batteries. Longer lifetime and high efficiency are two things that attract consumers in considering the use of Nickel Iron batteries. Unfortunately, Nickel Iron is about 330% more expensive than Lithium ion. Thus, Nickel iron battery is less favorable in large-scale production. There are 6 types of batteries that have performance and market potential above any other types. Lithium-ion ranks highest among those 6 types.

Beside of Nickel Iron batteries, sodium sulfur batteries also require high production costs. The vanadium battery is the cheapest production cost , however it is lowest in power supply capacity. Zinc bromide and lead acid at the medium production cost range, are the most fit to be used in short charging devices. Lithium-ion performs better in several parameters.  Lithium-ion provides high energy density to meet space constraints, versatility to provide many operation functions, and today it is commercially available for scalability.

The Lithium ion battery market will not be outperformed and replaced by any other types of energy storage.  Because other types of storage such as giant mechanical storage, hydro pumped and compressed water, have only stationary energy storage. In addition, electric storage such as super-inductive and super-capacitor requires higher technology and is costly to be operated.

Ultimately, the demand of Lithium ion batteries will sustain for at least the next 40 years.  The use of lithium ion batteries has been chosen for electric vehicles. Projection is it will become cheaper to produce. The price of electricity from the grid will increase globally and the battery price will reach a reasonable low point, so economically it will give the public the advantage of using   green energy stored through the storing capability in the arrays of Lithium Ion Batteries.