Additional Emissions and Cost from Storing Electricity in Stationary Battery Systems

Stationary batteries are an important
technological option for
renewable energy-based decarbonization of the electricity sector,
as they can counterbalance renewable energy sources’ intermittency
and provide grid-stabilizing services. However, it has been argued
that the additional economic cost of batteries, emissions occurring
during the manufacturing phase of batteries, and emissions caused
by losses during the use phase can reduce batteries’ potential
in supporting the decarbonization of the electricity sector. Here,
we perform a new battery production- and use-phase lifecycle emissions
and cost analysis to calculate the additional lifecycle greenhoues
gas (GHG) emissions (LCE) and costs (LCC) that arise from storing
electricity in six different battery technologies, five applications,
and three different geographies. Our results show that the LCE of
storing electricity are strongly determined by application and geography,
whereas LCC vary with application and technology. Lithium-ion technologies
perform best across most applications and geographies on both the
LCE and LCC dimensions. Furthermore, we only identify trade-offs between
the LCC and the GHG emissions cost when assuming a high social cost
of GHG emissions of 180 EUR/tonCO2e. Based on our results,
we discuss which dimensions of technological improvement of battery
technologies are most desirable from a societal perspective.