U.S. boosts energy storage 126% in Q2

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“The industry continues to surpass milestones, fueled by increased value and market opportunities, as well as plummeting system costs,” said Matt Roberts, executive director of the Energy Storage Association. “After record-breaking deployments in 2015, the energy storage industry is on pace to grow another 30 percent this year – increasing grid flexibility, efficiency and resiliency along the way.”

Year-over-year, energy storage deployments were up just 1 percent. What the market lacked in annual growth, however, it made up for in geographic and market-segment diversification. Behind-the-meter deployments, which consist of residential and commercial energy storage systems, grew 66 percent year-over-year. The report attributes this success to improving economics and adoption in new state markets.

Image: GTM Research
Image: GTM Research

“Additionally, the industry received a big boost from the White House, with recently announced public and private commitments that will result in 1.3 gigawatts of new storage deployments and, more importantly, spur a billion dollars in storage investments,” said Ravi Manghani, GTM Research’s director of energy storage.

The largest front-of-the-meter project during the quarter was not deployed in either PJM territory or California, the leading markets, but rather in MISO’s territory in Indiana. In fact, PJM territory and California together accounted for only 35 percent of the megawatt capacity and 47 percent of megawatt-hour capacity deployed in the quarter, their lowest contribution in more than three years. By the end of the year, however, California will reclaim its position as the nation’s top storage market, as several megawatts of storage are slated to be installed in record time to help ease Aliso Canyon-related capacity issues in Southern California.

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