Utility-scale lithium-ion battery energy storage systems (BESS), together with wind and solar power, are increasingly promoted as the solution to enabling a “clean” energy future.1 Advocates argue that batteries can store surplus power from wind and solar generation and discharge it when needed.2 As a result, governments, utilities, and investors have directed billions of dollars toward utility-scale battery installations worldwide.
This growing reliance on battery storage reflects an intriguing narrative: that batteries can resolve the intermittent and weather-dependent aspects of wind and solar and significantly reduce, if not eliminate, the need for fossil fuels in power generation. Yet this enthusiasm often overlooks the physical and economic realities of the lithium-ion battery storage technology that is currently in use. While batteries can provide valuable short-term support to the grid, they cannot function as long-duration energy storage (LDES) solutions or scale to the levels needed to back up large-scale energy systems that are reliant on intermittent wind and solar.
By focusing on utility-scale batteries as a viable solution for a “renewable” energy future, policy discussions risk overlooking critical technical, material, and life-cycle constraints. Without a clear understanding of these limits, investments and regulations could undermine energy reliability and security while misallocating and depleting raw materials, energy, finances, and other resources—thereby intensifying the environmental pressures that batteries are intended to alleviate and diverting much-needed investment in peak-power-capable, dispatchable energy generation infrastructure toward short-term, energy-consuming storage infrastructure.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member