A new Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre headquartered at Curtin University will support Australia’s growing battery industries.
According to a recent analysis from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, investments in battery capacity could reach globally $548 billion by 2050 (see insert). It is also a growing market in Australia.
A Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) outlook report from 2018 forecasts a steady rise of renewable energies on the back of falling prices for battery storage technologies, especially Lithium batteries.
BNEF predicts that lithium-ion battery prices, already down by nearly 80% per megawatt-hour since 2010, will continue to tumble as electric vehicle manufacturing builds up through the 2020s.
The analysis highlights “the huge impact the falling battery costs will have on the electricity mix over the coming decades”, as they will “enable electricity to be stored and discharged to meet shifts in demand and supply.”
In the wake of this development, the share of wind and solar in the electricity mix will rise to 50% by 2050, while that of coal will shrink from currently 38% down to just 11%, the outlook report finds.
“Batteries and battery development play a vital role in our society and present excellent export opportunities”, Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews said.
Funded with $25 million over six years from the Australian Government, the industry-led CRC will address gaps across the battery industries value chain, support battery deployment, optimise battery waste recycling and develop new battery storage systems.
It will also look at the downstream processing and manufacturing of minerals and chemicals used in batteries. This builds on the nation’s wealth in critical resources such as lithium, as recently highlighted in the government’s Critical Minerals Strategy.
“This CRC will help us to capture more value from these resources through downstream processing and manufacturing”, it says in a government statement.
It's an emerging area of Australian resources that is also the focus of the seventh round of the CRC Projects Grants, which will include a $20 million investment in critical minerals projects.