Is storage hopeless?

DALLAS -Jigar Shah left his audience gasping.

"If the storage industry is dependent on backing up solar, it's hopeless. You should quit your job today," Shah, a co-partner in Generate Capital, a San Francisco-based renewables financing firm, told them.

There are many more ways for companies in the storage world to revolutionize the grid, he said.

"[Solar] is not your lowest hanging fruit. Some of the other applications are way, way higher value," he said.

It wasn't the only comment in Shah's "reality check" to cause a stir at the Energy Storage Association conference here.

The former CEO of SunEdison, speaking to a ballroom filled with hundreds of government and trade body representatives from the Department of Energy, the Electric Power Research Institute, and California Energy Storage Alliance, suggested that the ESA change its name, or at least the name of its conference.

"Using 'energy storage' alone is not good," because it's overly broad, he said. "Come up with new words. ESA is not a battery conference alone."

An engineer by training, Shah was the founding CEO of the Carbon War Room, established by Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Unite. He also sits on the board of a large number of cleantech companies and climate-fighting organizations, including the Rocky Mountain Institute.

Speaking at the ESA conference Wednesday, Shah noted storage has been drawing attention from investors and others lately in part because Tesla Energy's Elon Musk is now pushing his way into the business. "And with so much damn solar and wind, there's the need for more storage," he said.

But, again, storage offers more than simply a way to hold excess renewable energy for later use. There's frequency regulation, load shifting and grid optimization, among other applications, he noted. Generate Capital is interested in financing projects in those areas.

Forecasts call for lots of growth for storage, Shah noted, but the challenge is understanding what it means to say you're in the storage business.

"Comparisons between solar and storage fall short," he said, meaning the potential for storage far exceeds whatever might be happening in solar.

That said, there's no doubt storage has the potential to accelerate solar in a big way.

At the same time, there's no shortage of risks in storage, Shah said, including issues related to battery lifespan, regulatory changes and servicing.

Shah is nonetheless positive about the potential to make money in storage. At the moment, he said, there's up to $60 billion in financing now available for solar projects. "Storage needs that same scale," he said.

Generate Capital, of course, is trying to do its share in financing promising projects.