The firm plans to have 50 gw h of storage operational in 2025, with another 50 gw h coming within the next few years. Compressed gas is another approach showing promise. Italy’s Energy Dome stores carbon dioxide under pressure in distinctive white domes. When energy is needed, the gas is expanded and passed through a turbine.
In dense urban areas, in particular, where access to home charging is more limited, public charging infrastructure is a key enabler for EV adoption.
(Image credit: Nio) Nio (NYSE: NIO) continues to explore the use of electric vehicles (EVs) as mobile energy storage by bringing a fleet of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging stations into service in Shanghai, where it has its global headquarters.
Goldman Sachs, a bank, reckons that global power demand at data centres will rise from 240 terawatt hours (tw h) in 2020 to 600 tw h in 2025. But tech giants have noisily committed to climate-friendly goals such as net-zero emissions, which means they cannot turn to coal and gas plants.
However, in some markets characterised by widespread availability of home charging (due to a high share of single-family homes with the opportunity to install a charger) the number of EVs per public charging point can be even higher. For example, in the United States, the ratio of EVs per charger is 24, and in Norway is more than 30.
If the total number of electric LDVs per charging point is considered, the global average in 2022 was about ten EVs per charger. Countries such as China, Korea and the Netherlands have maintained fewer than ten EVs per charger throughout past years.