North America is currently leading the world for utility-scale energy storage deployments, but could be overtaken by the second-largest market, the Asia-Pacific region, as early as 2023, according to forecasting and analysis by Guidehouse Insights.
Northvolt has now raised in excess of US$3.5 billion of financing towards its aim of establishing 150GWh of advanced battery manufacturing facilities in Europe by 2030.
In addition to Silicon Valley, California could also be host to its own “Lithium Valley” as the US state’s Energy Commission met last week to discuss extracting the vital battery ingredient from geothermal brine.
Northvolt, the startup which recently netted a US$1 billion equity raise for its initial lithium battery ‘gigafactory’ in Sweden, has said that its ambitions extend deep into the energy storage solutions space, in addition to its involvement with major carmakers.
A £55 million (US$67.8 million) fund has been earmarked for five projects in the UK looking at developing the next generation of battery storage technology.
The new mission focuses on local manufacturing across the whole supply chain for electric vehicles (EV) including battery and cell manufacturing while also supporting clean energy and storage uptake.
South Korea’s government is planning for 100MW of battery storage as part of a nearly 3GW hub of solar PV and wind on reclaimed land in Saemangeum, which is an estuarine tidal flat on the coast of the Yellow Sea.
Quoting an expected doubling in installed PV capacity over the next five years, a partnership between Chinese battery storage system maker BYD and European PV inverter company SMA is targeting the USA market, identifying it – along with Africa – as having “high growth potential” for the pair’s products.
