Battery storage costs vary by power, energy capacity
A new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) assesses the technical characteristics affecting costs of deployment for battery storage systems.
Their assessment is cleaved in two, however, as these systems fall along two different designs: some are meant to provide more instantaneous power (power capacity) and others a greater amount of storage and discharge (energy capacity). The former is a shorter duration system than the latter, giving them a lower cost per kilowatt price point, but higher costs per kilowatt hour. It all just depends on what is the battery’s system’s primary goal.
The report determined that each have their uses. Power-oriented systems aid the reliability of grids by allowing utilities to regulate frequency through large shifts into the power capacity. Energy-oriented systems are the endurance systems, giving them higher average costs per kilowatt and lower costs per kilowatt hours, and making them useful for delivering power during extended periods of the highest electricity demand.
These battery systems can be divided into three durations overall. Short, power-oriented duration batteries typically last less than 30 minutes. Medium duration systems range between 30 minutes and two hours, while long, energy-oriented systems usually last more than two hours.
