The Center for European Economic Research ( ZEW ) surveyed 180 energy industry experts on their current assessment of the energy storage market. Of them, 75% expect storage technologies to become increasingly important over the next decade as capacity requirements increase. The vast majority of respondents feel that batteries will see the biggest boom. They are relatively versatile and easily scalable, as ZEW scientist Dr. Wolfgang Habla explains.

A large capacity expansion in heat storage systems is predicted by 47% of the respondents. Almost as many expect the integration of energy sector with the heating and transport sectors to become increasingly important. Very few experts expect a breakthrough in pump and compressed air storage, while flywheel accumulators and magnetic storage are given hardly any chance at all. Respondents consider investment costs as the most important criteria for energy storage, followed by capacity, quick availability of the energy, environmental sustainability and social acceptance.

The Federal Association of Energy Storage ( BVES ) expects total sales for the German energy storage industry of more than five billion euros for 2018. They expect new storage technologies and applications to account for three of the five billion. The systemically deployable battery storage segment is apparently proving to be a "particularly dynamic sales generator".