Summary:
This report presents the very first overview of research, development and demonstration projects on energy storage in Europe. A total of fourteen countries are covered, together with activities sponsored directly by the European Commission. Over the past five years almost one billion EURO has been invested in this field spread over 391 distinct projects.
This mapping provides an overview by looking into the technological orientation of each project and by mapping at which level it is related to the electricity grid (from generation of transmission to distribution and end users). This will inform further decisions on the role of storage in grid development and the interactions between both.
Globally speaking, national funding amounts to close to 800 million; the EC's share hovers around 200 million and is thus very sizeable in comparison to the average share of European funding in R&D. The bulk of the budgets is spent on electrochemical storage (mostly batteries), Power-to-Gas and thermal storage.
The field of energy storage is clearly a fledgling one. Most efforts are still in a research stage, with some of them reaching first pilots. Very few projects have advanced to the demonstration or pre-commercial stage. Those that have done so are considerably larger than the rest of the sample. It is worth exploring the link between financing schemes based on grid tariffs and the number of more advanced and large projects, that seems to be present.
[…]
IIT Project: Grid+ (Grid+)
Funding entity: Comisión Europea (DG TREN). FP7 - Cooperation / Energy
Publication date: 10-10-2013
IIT-13-198I
Download report