Better Batteries (2030)
By 2030, solid-state batteries will transform energy storage by delivering safer, higher-density, and lower-cost power, enabling mass adoption of electric vehicles, renewable energy storage, and next-generation electronics. This transition will depend on parallel advances in sustainable material sourcing, battery recycling, and cross-industry collaboration to scale production and accelerate the global energy transition.
“$60 /kWh
Price of battery energy (2030)”
“200.000
Number of recent US battery patents”
Context
Battery development has become a priority area for a broadening range of companies in recent years. Significant investment is underway as a number of new technologies compete for fast-growing markets. Five years ago, we identified that energy storage was the missing piece of the renewables jigsaw: “If solved, it can enable truly distributed solar energy as well as accelerate the electrification of the transport industry.”[1] Today, as economies focus on faster decarbonisation and increasing electrification, particularly in transportation, the speed of new battery development has become a central issue for many researchers, policy makers, investors and companies.
Why is this? If we can get significantly more energy from a lighter, more compact, but affordable battery then the implications are enormous. Not only will this accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles by extending their range and providing a cheap way to store renewable, particularly low cost solar, energy, but it will also release a host of new developments in other areas from wearable electronics to electric planes, drones and scooters.
Given the demand for high performing batteries is building, it is hardly surprising that there is as much focus today on creating the batteries of tomorrow as there was when the first rechargeable battery was invented 160 years ago: according to a USPTO search in the past decade or so over 200,000 battery related patents have been issued.[2] The rush to deliver the next generation technology is bringing together a host of new partnerships and foremost in many discussions is the potential impact of solid-state batteries. Within the next decade these could become the catalysts for substantial and lasting change across many sectors.
Current Technology
It may be useful to consider what happens inside a battery to help clarify where change is likely to happen. A battery is a pack of one or more cells, each of which shares some common core elements: a positive electrode (the cathode), a negative electrode (the anode), a separator and an electrolyte which can be liquid, solid or gel. Electricity is generated when a chemical reaction takes place that moves electrons from the anode to the cathode. Using different chemicals and materials for these affects the properties of the battery: how much energy it can store; the energy output; how much power it can provide; and the number of times it can be discharged and recharged.[3] In most devices there is a trade-off between battery size, design, safety, efficiency and performance.
