Due to increasing deployments of solar PV, wind energy and diffusion of batteries for electric mobility, the demand for batteries is anticipated to increase in coming years. In another way, due to recent advancement of battery technologies and cost reduction of batteries, the adoption of solar PV, wind energy and electric vehicle (EV) is being increased. Electrochemical storage has become the supreme choice for most of the consumer product application. Secondary (re-chargeable) batteries are commonly used for energy storage applications, which involves multiple charging/discharging cycles. Due to convergence of recharging, the nickel–cadmium battery (NiCd) and nickel metal hydride (NiMH) has witnessed mainstream adoption. Introduction of lithium-based batteries is changing the market scenario, as these batteries offers fast charging, higher energy efficiency and longer shelf life. Applications of lithium-based batteries are expanding across segments, applications that are adopting lithium-ion batteries are mostly direct replacement of lead acid batteries.

In terms of volume, the lithium ion batteries have higher penetration in small portable electronic applications due to its key attributes including light-weight and high efficiencies. Evolving applications such as electric mobility and energy storage systems are becoming the prime application segment for lithium-based batteries. This is mainly due to the power outage/ interruptions is among the major cases for insurance losses and business continuity.

For instance, data centre footprint is expanding across regions, power interruptions in data centres causes huge economic loss to business, as most of the todays business are operates on cloud environment. Presently, majority of data centres are installed with lead acid battery cells, mostly due to its cost advantage. Major data corporations such as Google, and Facebook have already moved to lithium-based power storage solutions. In coming years, lead acid battery will be replaced by lithium-based battery in majority of data centres due to its advantages over lead acid battery. Some of the key factors contributing the demand for lithium-based battery for applications such as power backup/power storage and electric mobility includes less weight, ability to quickly discharge large amount of power & faster charging period, lesser footprint, and longer service life.

Overview -Types of Batteries



– Delsingh,
ICT – Research Analyst
Infoholic Research