Benchmark electricity price for energy storage

What are the benchmarks for PV and energy storage systems?

The benchmarks in this report are bottom-up cost estimates of all major inputs to PV and energy storage system (ESS) installations. Bottom-up costs are based on national averages and do not necessarily represent typical costs in all local markets.

Which energy storage technologies are included in the 2020 cost and performance assessment?

The 2020 Cost and Performance Assessment provided installed costs for six energy storage technologies: lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, lead-acid batteries, vanadium redox flow batteries, pumped storage hydro, compressed-air energy storage, and hydrogen energy storage.

Is electricity storage an economic solution?

Electricity storage is currently an economic solution of-grid in solar home systems and mini-grids where it can also increase the fraction of renewable energy in the system to as high as 100% (IRENA, 2016c). The same applies in the case of islands or other isolated grids that are reliant on diesel-fired electricity (IRENA, 2016a; IRENA, 2016d).

Why is it important to compare energy storage technologies?

As demand for energy storage continues to grow and evolve, it is critical to compare the costs and performance of different energy storage technologies on an equitable basis.

Why do we need a benchmarking report for residential PV-plus-storage installations?

Because of the historic levels of residential PV-plus-storage installations, we now have significantly more system characteristic data on which to base our benchmark (unlike previous benchmarking reports in which we used optimization calculations).

How much power does a battery energy storage system use?

For battery energy storage systems (BESS), the power levels considered were 1, 10, and 100 megawatt (MW), with durations of 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 hours. For pumped storage hydro (PSH), 100 and 1000 MW systems with 4- and 10-hour durations were considered for comparison with BESS.