Lumen’s study takes a closer look at the operations, costs and benefits of storage resources in California – largely lithium-ion batteries, but also including thermal energy storage and other battery chemistries. These resources range from 25 kW to 300 MW, with discharge durations that range from less than an hour to seven hours.
The report found that from 2017 through 2021, California’s stationary storage market developed from a pilot phase into deploying lithium-ion batteries at commercial scale. At the same time, storage costs dropped significantly – with third-party contract prices ranging from $5 to $8 per kilowatt-month for capacity by the end of 2021 – and the use of storage to meet reliability needs increased significantly.
