Energy storage

As volatile power generation from wind and photovoltaics expands, energy storage has become a key component of the energy transition by balancing load fluctuations and assisting in matching power supply with consumption load.

Energy storage solutions becoming established in the market

The energy storage market in Germany shows a constant growth across all storage technologies. The pumped-hydro storage, thermal storage and home, industrial and large-scale battery storage segments combined achieved a revenue volume of around 5.5 billion EUR in 2020. Pumped-hydro storage still accounts for the largest share of the overall revenue, followed by industrial battery storage. A strong growth has been seen in the area of home battery storage in recent years.

Revenue by segments (left) and overall revenue development (right)

The various storage technologies have different characteristics, for example in terms of storage capacity and storage duration, which strongly influence their suitability for different applications.

Storage duration and capacity range of different storage technologies

Energy storage systems offer a variety of different application possibilities. These include the provision of control energy, trading on the spot market for power price arbitrage, optimizing self-consumption of PV electricity based on home battery storage (for residential customers), as well as smoothing the customer's individual consumption profile and reducing the necessary grid connection power (and thus saving on grid fees) in industrial applications.

Declining costs and falling revenue potential for large-scale battery storage systems

Large-scale battery storage systems have shown steady growth of the installed capacity in Germany in recent years. Starting from less than 10 MW in 2014, more than 500 MW of power are currently installed in Germany. These are mostly used for the provision of frequency containment reserve (FCR), but increasingly in combination with other applications such as power price arbitrage (multi-use) due to falling frequency containment reserve prices.

Development of investments costs (left) and FCR prices (right)

In our large-scale battery storage database, all battery storage systems with a capacity of more than 100 kW that are connected to the German public power supply system are listed and the most important parameters such as investment costs, installed capacity, field of application and the energy storage technology used are evaluated. Among other things, this allows analyses to be carried out on the individual use cases and business models as well as the development of investment costs.

Consulting Services

• Market analyses and expert reports
• Development of business models for traditional utilities and new entrants
• Consulting of manufacturers with regard to marketing and distribution potential
• Support of infrastructure operators to evaluate chances and risks
• Due Diligence for investors