Energy storage sees significant growth as more utilities include it in long-term plans
Deployments grew 46% in the third quarter and are expected to rise nearly nine-fold by 2022, GTM and ESA report.
Energy storage deployments are growing rapidly, propelled by regulatory action, improving economics and utility moves to include the resource in their long-term planning.
A total of 41.8 MW of energy storage projects were deployed in the third quarter, marking a 46% year-over-year increase from third quarter 2016, according to the latest Energy Storage Monitor from GTM Research and the Energy Storage Association.
There were also 10% more energy storage deployments in the third quarter than in the second quarter, which saw a total of 38.2 MW deployed, the report said.
Utility-scale projects lead
Utility-scale projects led the market in the third quarter, with a single 30 MW storage project in Texas accounting for about two-thirds of the quarter’s total. That also resulted in behind-the-meter installations taking a smaller share of the market, 26%, in the third quarter, compared with 42% in the second quarter.
In terms of duration, deployments dropped quarter over quarter as many utility scale projects had discharge durations of less than one hour. There were 42.5 MWh of energy storage projects deployed in the third quarter, a 5% increase year-over-year, but a 17% decline compared with the second quarter.
The Texas project put the Lone Star state at the top of the list for utility-scale deployments for the quarter. California topped the list for the non-residential market with 6.5 MW of deployments, and for the residential market with 1.87 MW of deployments. Hawaii ranked second in residential deployments in the quarter with 1.21 MW of projects and was third in non-residential deployments with 5 kW.
GTM expects a total of 295 MW of energy storage to be deployed in 2017, a 28% increase from the 231 MW deployed in 2016.
Nine-fold growth
Looking further out, the report sees the energy storage market growing nine-fold between 2017 and 2022, with the behind-the-meter market, both residential and non-residential, accounting for up to half of the market by 2021. In dollar terms, the report estimates the energy storage market will be worth $3.1 billion by 2022. The authors expect energy storage deployments to cross the 1 GW per year mark in 2019, bolstered by improved economics and procurement programs.
According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, prices for lithium-ion battery packs have fallen 24% from 2016 levels.
Regulatory and policy initiatives are also likely to drive market growth. Utilities across the country are increasingly including energy storage in their integrated resource plans (IRPs).
“Energy storage is increasingly acknowledged in utilities’ long-term resource planning across the country,” Ravi Manghani, GTM Research’s director of energy storage, said in a statement. “Many utilities that hadn’t considered energy storage in IRPs a year or two ago are now explicitly modeling hundreds of megawatts of storage into their resource stacks.”
The GTM-ESA report identifies 17 states that include energy storage in either their resource planning or in rate cases.
