Electricity storage is considered a key technology to enable low-carbon power systems. However, existing studies focus on investment cost. The future lifetime cost of different technologies (i.e., levelized cost of storage) that account for all relevant cost and performance parameters are still unexplored.

This study projects application-specific lifetime cost for multiple electricity storage technologies. We find specialized technologies are unlikely to compete with lithium ion, apart from in long discharge applications. Their performance advantages do not outweigh the pace of lithium-ion cost reductions. These insights could affect business and research strategies for storage, shifting investments to performance improvements for alternative technologies or focusing it on lithium ion. This shows parallels to solar cells where first-generation crystalline cells still dominate, despite significant investments in alternative cell technologies that were expected to be cheaper.