Rapid expansion of batteries will be crucial to meet climate and energy security goals set at COP28. Batteries are a vital part of the energy transition. They’re the fastest growing clean technology on the market. They help meet climate goals & ensure energy security. They bring down emissions in power and transport.
Batteries are an important part of the global energy system today and are poised to play a critical role in secure clean energy transitions. In the transport sector, they are the essential component in the millions of electric vehicles sold each year. In the power sector, battery storage is the fastest growing clean energy technology on the market. Moreover, falling costs for batteries are fast improving the competitiveness of electric vehicles and storage applications in the power sector.
The IEA’s Special Report on Batteries and Secure Energy Transitions highlights the key role batteries will play in fulfilling the recent 2030 commitments made by nearly 200 countries at COP28 to put the global energy system on the path to net zero emissions. These include tripling global renewable energy capacity, doubling the pace of energy efficiency improvements and transitioning away from fossil fuels.
In less than 15 years, battery costs have fallen by more than 90%, one of the fastest declines ever seen in clean energy technologies. The most common type of batteries, those based on lithium-ion, have typically been associated with consumer electronics. But today, the energy sector accounts for over 90% of overall battery demand. In 2023 alone, battery deployment in the power sector increased by more than 130% year-on-year, adding a total of 42 gigawatts (GW) to electricity systems around the world. In the transport sector, batteries have enabled electric car sales to surge from 3 million in 2020 to almost 14 million last year, with further strong growth expected in the coming years.
“The electricity and transport sectors are two key pillars for bringing down emissions quickly enough to meet the targets agreed at COP28 and keep open the possibility of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. “Batteries will provide the foundations in both areas, playing an invaluable role in scaling up renewables and electrifying transport while delivering secure and sustainable energy for businesses and households. The combination of solar PV and batteries is today competitive with new coal plants in India. And just in the next few years, it will be cheaper than new coal in China and gas-fired power in the United States. Batteries are changing the game before our eyes.”
To scale up batteries globally, the report found that costs need to come down further without compromising quality and technology. Ensuring energy security also requires greater diversity in supply chains, including for extracting and processing the critical minerals used in batteries – and for manufacturing the batteries themselves. Countries are already tackling this through ambitious industrial programmes to support local manufacturing capacity with targeted policies in the United States, European Union and India among others.
Global battery manufacturing has more than tripled in the last three years. While China produces most batteries today, the report shows that 40% of announced plans for new battery manufacturing is in advanced economies such as the United States and the European Union. If all those projects are built, those economies would have nearly enough manufacturing to meet their own needs to 2030 on the path to net zero emissions.
To triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030, 1 500 GW of energy storage, of which 1 200 GW from batteries, will be required. A shortfall in deploying enough batteries would risk stalling clean energy transitions in the power sector.
/IEA/