一项德国研究表明：全球储能市场可能会在今后20年中扩大两倍多，即需要投资2800亿欧元（3801亿美元）。
风力或太阳能等可再生能源的份额正在迅速扩大，这就需要未来的存储设备为绿色电力不足的时期做好准备。
“除了现有的大约100吉瓦的容量，到2030年各种存储技术将在全球市场有330吉瓦的潜力。”该研究摘要说。
The global market for electricity storage facilities could more than triple in size, requiring 280 billion euros ($380.1 billion) of investment over the next 20 years, said a German study released on Friday.
The share of renewable energy such as wind or solar power is expanding rapidly as the world looks to rein in carbon dioxide emissions, but its output depends on weather patterns, said the study from Boston Consulting Group's (BCG) Munich office.
Because the sun does not always shine and the wind does not always blow, far more storage will be needed in future to keep reserve green power ready for undersupply periods.
Power storage is also needed to provide balancing supply when loads on transmission networks vary wildly -- due to the inevitable volatility of renewable power fed into them.
"In addition to currently available capacity of around 100 gigawatt (GW), there will be a global market potential of 330 GW in various storage technologies up to 2030," an abstract of the BCG study said.
"This necessitates an additional cumulative investment need of 280 billion euros (to 2030)."
The authors said they believed good financial returns were possible even without subsidies for utilities, raw materials and special equipment suppliers and financial players.
They highlighted opportunities in providing power obtained in low price periods and then released to operators at times that peak prices are paid.
It said that Germany, the United States, China and Japan were discussing storage-related regulation, which could work toward boosting business opportunities.