A review on reviews of energy storage systems: Do we know enough to make a sustainable decision?

This study presents a review of current parameters of various Energy Storage Systems (ESTs) considered in overview documents and assesses the frequency of appearance of parameters and the transparency in reporting. A literature research was carried out, followed by a frequency analysis to identify relevant studies and most frequently reported parameters. In total, 14 studies are chosen, reporting values for 18 different parameters of 61 ESTs. Additionally, the chosen studies were filtered for parameters representing the three pillars of sustainability, namely economy, environment and society. It was found that technological and economic parameters are well-integrated in the reviewed studies while environmental and social impacts are assessed qualitatively and less frequently. A general issue that affects studies collecting and comparing parameters of multiple storage systems is the lack of explanation on how parameters where exactly calculated.