Off-Grid Energy Storage

International audienceThe chapter examines both the potential and barriers to off-grid energy storage (focusing on battery technology) as a key asset to satisfy electricity needs of individual households, small communities, and islands. Remote areas away from urban facilities where the main electricity grid is either not developed or the grid is uneconomical to extend are especially targeted, as well as islands, which may face daunting energy and environmental challenges if grid electricity is reduced. Through a series of discussions and perspectives the reader is provided with an overview of the off-grid challenges at stake; the commonly used energy storage technologies; and clues to compare universal characteristics with context/technology-specific values. This provides a strategy to help identify overlap between off-grid energy service needs and storage technology capabilities. The relative costs of energy storage and how this can depend on regulatory treatment of storage and local market structure is also considered. This discussion is followed by some remarks about regulatory and future market design challenges. The chapter closes with international examples with the aim to give a glimpse of current off-grid storage market dynamics