Transportation and grid markets will more than double in the next five years

With virtually every major automaker planning an electric vehicle launch, and governments worldwide funneling billions of dollars into smart grid technologies, the prospects for power storage technologies are undeniably bright.

As indicated in the graph on the left, the overall market for emerging technologies that target transportation and smart grid applications will more than double from $21.4 billion in 2010 to $44.4 billion in 2015, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.7%.

On the right, we see that the energy storage portion of those markets will grow almost as aggressively, rocketing from $8.1 billion in 2010 to $15.8 billion in 2015, a CAGR of 14.3%.

Notably, technologies supporting the power grid will dominate the larger market. But, for energy storage, the big story is in transportation which is expected to balloon from $7.7 billion this year to $14.5 billion in 2015. It may surprise some to learn that electric cars won’t be the biggest driver behind this market’s expected 13.5% CAGR. Rather the most aggressive growth in electric vehicle energy storage will come from e-bike/scooter batteries, which are currently dominated by lead acid batteries but will see Li-ion battery sales gain market share.