This is forecast to rise to around 967GW by 2030. Total grid scale battery storage capacity stood at a record high of 3.5GW in Great Britain at the end of Q4 2023. This represents a 13% increase compared with Q3 2023. The UK battery strategy acknowledges the need to keep growing battery storage capacity.
As with capacity, there is no set definition regarding storage duration. According to US Energy Information Administration, storage duration depends on how grid scale batteries are used. It notes the following regarding capacity-weighted average storage duration in megawatt hours (MWh): Why is grid scale battery storage necessary?
• Widespread adoption of utility-scale batteries in power systems. Allow large-scale battery storage systems to participate in ancillary services markets and be remunerated accordingly for all the services they can provide to support the system Develop accounting, billing and metering methods for large-scale grid-connected battery storage systems
Grid scale battery storage refers to batteries which store energy to be distributed at grid level. Let’s quickly cover a few other key details. There is no definition of what constitutes ‘grid scale’ when it comes to capacity. Each grid scale battery storage facility is usually measured in megawatts (MW). Take the UK as an example.
Strong growth occurred for utility-scale battery projects, behind-the-meter batteries, mini-grids and solar home systems for electricity access, adding a total of 42 GW of battery storage capacity globally.
Here, we analyze the footprint of forty-four MWh-scale battery energy storage systems via satellite imagery and calculate their energy capacity per land area in kWh m−2, demonstrating that energy density is not critical for such installations and that the importance of this metric for grid-scale batteries is heavily overstated in academia.