International Coalition leading forward momentum for energy storage

Efforts to advance energy storage recently crossed national borders with the development of the International Coalition for Energy Storage and Innovation (ICESI).

Though the organization just held its inaugural meeting this year, its ranks include the U.S.–particularly the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory–China, Spain, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Korea. Their role is to connect researchers with industry and addressing the development and deployment of energy storage technology.

“As part of a scientific force that focuses on development of important energy storage solutions for industry, we understand that the need for such technologies goes beyond U.S. borders,” Wei Wang, a senior scientist heading stationary energy storage research and development at PNNL, said. “We knew an organization like ICESI is critical to bring the minds of the international energy storage community together to solve challenges impacting many countries.”

According to Greentech Media, the energy storage market could reach as high a worth as $3 billion by 2022. For perspective, that is 10 times what it was just two years ago. To address this, ICESI has created a series of committees built around specific energy storage issues: lithium-ion batteries, redox flow batteries, and long-term research, for example. With international backing, an annual report of the organization’s–and therefore, energy storage’s–progress will be conducted.

ICESI’s second meeting will not take place until 2019.