Life Cycle Economic Analysis of Flow Batteries Considering Technological Progress and Scale Effect

Sun Haotong(Nankai University)

Abstract

With the increasing penetration of renewable energy, long-duration energy storage (LDES) technologies are becoming increasingly important. Flow batteries have emerged as strong candidates for large-scale energy storage due to their high safety, long cycle life, and decoupled power and capacity design. However, high initial investment costs remain the primary barrier to their commercialization. Most existing economic evaluations adopt static cost models that fail to fully account for cost reduction potentials driven by technological progress and scale effects from expanded production and deployment, which may lead to biased judgments on the life-cycle economics of flow batteries. To address this gap, this study develops a dynamic life-cycle cost model integrating technological progress and scale effects. By introducing learning curves, the model characterizes the continuous cost reduction of key materials and system manufacturing driven by technological advancement and scaled production. It comprehensively considers costs and benefits across all life-cycle stages, including project construction, operation and maintenance, and residual value recovery. The results show that, driven by the combined effects of technological progress and scale economies, the levelized cost of energy storage (LCOES) of flow batteries is expected to drop substantially within the next decade and become economically competitive with conventional long-duration energy storage technologies such as pumped hydro storage and compressed air energy storage in specific application scenarios.

 

Keywords

flow battery; life-cycle cost; learning curve

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26549/jsbe.v8i2.36597