Life Cycle Analysis of Lithium-ion Batteries: An Assessment of Sustainability Impact

Energy storage systems are essential to bring down greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere and to mitigate climate change related damages to the environment by paving the way to integrate more variable renewable energy into the generation mix of a region or country. Greater penetration of intermittent variable renewable energy is facilitated by the presence of utility-scale battery energy storage systems at suitable locations in the grid. Lithium-ion batteries which enjoy the highest market share at present suffer from serious environmental non-sustainability issues during their life cycle and during the recycling processes; hence their use is to be curtailed to save the environment from damages caused by emissions and other toxic pollutants which detrimentally affect our air, water, and terrestrial ecosystem. This paper is an attempt to study the environmental damages of lithium-ion batteries through a life cycle analysis and suggest appropriate sustainable solutions to overcome such issues.