The battery storage technologies draw attention as a new investment field in in 2018 and its aftermath. In Turkey too, the battery will be included in “the new generation renewable energy” tender. In other words, we’ll be talking a lot about the energy storage technologies in the next periods…

THE RENEWABLE ENERGY

is on the rise across the world. In 2017, 406 deals were signed in merger and acquisition in the renewable energy worldwide and the total value of these deals surged to 40,1 billion euros. KPMG Global Renewable Energy Operations 2018 report states that the battery storage technologies, rising as a new investment field, play a key role in the future of these plants.

82 per cent of the executives participating to the research focusing on the developments and trends in the renewable energy industry, anticipate growth in offshore sources over the next 24 months, followed by solar and hydroelectric sources. This surge will be due to these sources becoming more attractive for the “cautious” investors as the renewable energy technologies will mature and get commercialized.

548 billion dollars will be invested to the batteries

The falling storage prices change also the direction of the energy industry. According to the analysis of “The Future of Global Electricity System in 2018” by Bloomberg News Energy Finance, the falling storage prices will change radically the electricity generation combination over the next ten years. Upon the analysis emphasizing that the prices of lithium-ion batteries decreased up to 80 per cent per megawatt-hour since the year 2010 and this drop will accelerate further in 2020s, an investment of 548 billion dollars is anticipated until the year 2050; two third of this investment will be allocated to the network and one third will be channeled to the houses.

The analysis foresees that 11,5 trillion will be invested to the electricity production between 2018-2050; 8,4 trillion dollars of this investment will go to the solar and wind energy and more than 1,5 trillion dollars will flow to the zero carbon technologies like hydro and nuclear. Thus, the solar energy capacity is expected to grow 17 times worldwide and the solar power price is expected to drop by 71 per cent. As for the wind, a capacity increase of six-fold is anticipated and the terrestrial wind power price is anticipated to decrease by 58 per cent. According to the analysis, the rise of solar and wind power will mostly hit the coal. The share of coal in the electricity production will fall from the current level of 38 per cent to 11 per cent.

The investors, turning their attention to the offshore wind turbines, are mostly interested with the region of Europe, Middle East and Africa including Turkey. 53 per cent of participants think that Britain and 28 per cent think that Germany will attract the highest amount of investment and US is on the last rank with 2 per cent.

STORAGE IS IMPORTANT FOR 98 PER CENT OF EXECUTIVES

According to the research, the battery storage technologies enabling to obtain the energy in a sustainable manner from the renewable energy plants and rising as a new investment area after the year 2018, play a key role in the future of these plants. 98 per cent of the participant executives think that the battery storage is important when investing to the renewable sources and 57 per cent say it’s very important.

We can conclude that the offshore wind power plants and batteries arise as the new trends of the energy industry parallel to the technological developments in the world and the timing of Turkey for the planning in this field is right. Indeed Berat Albayrak, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of time’ statement in May pointed out these developments. “A new implementation is launched about the solar energy storage. Not only in wind turbines and solar panel, Turkey advances in terms of R&D in storage and battery technologies too. We’ll endeavor to turn our country into a global base as much as a regional base for the energy technologies, to reduce the energy dependence to minimum and to provide a better quality of energy” he says. On the other hand, Fatih Öztürk, Head of the New Technologies Department at the Renewable Energy General Directorate, speaking at the Renewable Energy Storage and Electric Cars Technology Workshop, stated that they plan to add storage to the new renewable energy projects.

As the public sector is engaged in these preparations, the private sector is already mobilized. Akfen Holding Chairman Hamdi Akın indicated that a very different world is emerging in the energy storage. “The Ministry of Energy has a serious project in this regard. Turkey will make a remarkable jump in this field, led by the Ministry. I think we can be one of these players” he said. Again, the companies like Turcas, Kalyon showed in recent months their intention to invest in this field.