Electricity is having another Thomas Edison moment of transformation this century, and it's all thanks to lithium-ion batteries.
Nearly 150 years after the American scientist patented the light bulb and turned on the world's first commercial power plant in New York City, the way electricity is stored, dispatched and balanced is undergoing its own revolution.
Lithium-ion batteries are increasingly finding use cases far beyond electric cars and consumer electronics. Batteries are stabilizing transmission grids, serving as backup energy storage systems and cushioning the enormous power demands of AI data centers, helping the world shift towards renewable energy and away from fossil fuels.
You can thank the growth of electric vehicles for at least some of this. Electric vehicles account for the largest share of global lithium-ion battery demand, according to the International Energy Agency. That share was pegged at over 950 gigawatt-hours last year and is on track to exceed a terawatt-hour this year, enough to power 12.5 million EVs with an average pack size of 80 kilowatt-hours about the size of your average Hyundai Ioniq 5, for context.
