Storage Lab
What would the worldmap look like if country sizes reflected installed utility-scale battery capacity?
Well, it shows an extreme concentration in ‘developed economies’ (!), indicating that the potential value of energy storage is only exploited there. However, energy storage can have a transformative impact on ‘emerging and developing economies’ as well by reducing electricity cost, stabilizing weak power grids, or providing electricity access in the first place (see Energy Access).
This highlights the important role of smart business models and programs like the WorldBank Energy Storage Partnership (ESP) to make the potential value of energy storage accessible to 'emerging and developing economies'.
Figure – Comparison of two worldmaps with country-size based on installed utility-scale battery storage capacity (top) and based on land area (bottom),
Credits for the worldmap code go to the amazing tool https://go-cart.io/ and Michael Gastner.
M. T. Gastner, V. Seguy and P. More. Fast flow-based algorithm for creating density-equalizing map projections. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 115(10):E2156–E2164 (2018)