Powering the Future

The full potential of renewable energy can be unlocked by improving battery storage capacities, which help provide energy when and where it’s needed the most.

According to WSP’s public opinion poll on energy, there’s increasing support from the public for greater electricity storage, as nearly seven out of 10 (69 percent) Americans believe the U.S. government should invest more in batteries for electricity storage to make the electric grid more resilient.

In this Q&A, Saurabh Chatterjee, vice president of onshore renewables at WSP in the U.S., discusses next-generation battery technologies; challenges facing the industry; and innovations driving us toward a more resilient grid.

Describe some of the biggest challenges in your field, and the ways that you're working to help resolve those issues?

While renewable energy remains a cost competitive technology from a levelized cost of energy perspective, we continue to face market challenges in deployment.

Interconnection issues remain a bottleneck. This is not helping as the demand for more generation keeps increasing and we simply do not have enough energy generation to meet current demand. This is especially highlighted with the growing demand by data centers, which require the “five nines” (99.999 percent) of reliability. Renewables are intermittent and don’t always align with this demand, and the build out of transmissions is too slow to meet this demand as well.

This is where battery energy storage system (BESS) technology can help. This technology can firm up intermittent renewable generation and is becoming increasingly cost competitive.

What technological advancements are setting next-generation battery storage apart from traditional solutions?

Today, most commercially available and ready-to-scale BESS’s are based on lithium iron phosphate (LFP) chemistry. But next-generation battery storage is quickly evolving beyond LFP, with innovations happening in solid state batteries, sodium ion batteries, zinc, vanadium and other types of flow battery chemistries.

These innovations are not only providing alternatives to LFP. They’re also driving more environmentally friendly and safer solutions that help prevent the risk of thermal runaway and fire.

How are new battery chemistries impacting cost, scalability and environmental sustainability?

There are four types of battery chemistry that are reshaping the economics, scalability and sustainability of storage, and all in ways that greatly differ from legacy lithium-ion:

1. Sodium-ion batteries that use abundant low-cost sodium instead of lithium, nickel or cobalt. They’re expected to be cheaper than LFP batteries for stationary storage and mass-market EVs, while also leveraging existing LFP manufacturing and avoiding lithium and cobalt supply chain issues.

    

2. Flow batteries are produced using vanadium, zinc and iron. There is a higher upfront cost for this technology, but it offers an extremely long lifespan of 20 to 30 years and unlimited cycles. These batteries are ideal for utility-scale, multi-day storage and can be easily scaled by increasing electrolyte tank size without redesigning cells.

    

3. Iron-air/metal-air batteries are produced from low-cost materials and have the potential for long-duration storage. The tradeoff is that this technology, which is now in the pilot stage, needs to become more commercially viable. They are currently more suited for bulk shifting than fast regulation, but they are also highly scalable with low risk of fire.

    

4. Solid state batteries are currently expensive due to manufacturing complexity, but those costs could fall with scale, as their higher energy density could reduce balance-of-system costs. The scalability hinges on breakthroughs in solid electrolyte manufacturing. As such, there’s strong interest from EV makers to leverage this technology.

Overall, as these alternate chemistries mature, become more commercially viable and improve in overall efficiency, they will have a path to capturing more market share.

What role do smart grids and digital technologies play in optimizing storage systems?

Smart grids and digital technologies transform next-generation energy storage by making batteries intelligent grid resources.

Real-time monitoring, IoT (Internet of Things) sensors and AI-based analytics optimize renewable energy balancing, dispatch and grid support. These innovations enable virtual power plants, strengthen grid resilience and expand market opportunities. Digital platforms also improve cybersecurity, asset tracking and predictive maintenance, extending battery life and reducing costs.

Together, smart grids and digital advances accelerate renewable integration and create a more adaptive, robust and economically sustainable power system.

What regulatory or market changes could accelerate the adoption of new battery storage technologies?

There are three key areas of focus if we really want to speed up the shift to next-gen battery storage.

First, we need to support market design for long-duration storage, as current markets mainly reward lithium-ion batteries that provide two to four hours of storage. To accelerate adoption of next-generation chemistries, we need separate capacity markets that support longer-duration storage, ranging from eight to 100 hours and seasonal backup.

Second, we need improved market valuation of resiliency to reward energy storage for emergency support, such as black starts and extreme weather backup. Standardizing interconnection processes and fast-tracking next-gen pilot projects through regulatory “sandbox” frameworks would accelerate deployment, while coordinating storage siting with renewable buildouts would help avoid delays.

Finally, we need to strengthen supply chains by incentivizing domestic production of sodium-ion, iron or zinc batteries, while at the same time reducing our reliance on lithium and cobalt. Furthermore, establishing recycling rules and circular economic frameworks would give investors greater certainty about end-of-life costs.

Together, these steps will advance the market and enable next-generation storage to deliver a more reliable and energy-secure future.