June 7, 2024: The lithium-ion battery market will peak then collapse within the next 20 years, according to a report by Zhar Research released this week.

“Lithium-ion batteries are facing a slow but inexorable replacement by other ion-batteries, starting with sodium-ion then perhaps aqueous zinc-ion batteries,” it said. 

However, the report says the need for long duration energy storage will become an ever more important issue given that there is a growing awareness that LDES needs to go beyond the four-to-eight hour mark to even months-or-more grid storage.

These, it predicts, will mostly be mechanical systems such as gravity and underground compressed air storage, although redox flow batteries may have a role.

“Although GWh deployments of lithium-ion batteries do occur for under eight hours duration, they are merely a stopgap in the face of scalable, non-flammable, non-toxic alternatives coming in with one tenth of the levelized cost of storage and 20 times the life at that duration (very little recycling),” the report went on to say.

Non-electrochemical energy will come to the fore. A good example, suggests the report, is in Queensland where the Australian state will install the largest pumped hydro storage, storing electricity for up to months.

“There are, says the report, other gravity/energy storage possibilities around.

The report says there is also a full orderbook for proven compressed air in underground caverns such as old salt mines, with 84 days the current record. “Already, plenty of orders for 12 hours duration of subsequent discharge or more are being placed, with lithium-ion batteries not even considered. LDES will be at least 30% of the total market in 2044 and another no-go area for lithium-ion,” says the report.

The CEO of Zhar Research behind the findings, is Peter Harrop, a respected chairperson of more than a dozen high-tech companies and founder of the firm.