US energy storage market to grow 9x by 2021
June 29, 2016 | By
April Nowicki
The energy storage market is on track to grow nine times in the next five years, exceeding 2 GW for the first time, according to new research from GreenTechMedia. GreenTechMedia's Q2 2016 Energy Storage Monitor indicated that the energy storage deployed in the first quarter of 2016 was 84 percent below the last quarter of 2015, mostly attributed to the non-residential market which decreased 27 percent from the previous quarter. The residential market increased by 5 percent. Year-over-year, the 18.3 MW of energy storage deployed in the first quarter showed a 127 percent increase. Behind-the-meter energy storage deployment continues growing, and is expected to significantly contribute to the total MWs deployed in coming years. Hawaiian Electric Company and technology company Greenlots launched a pilot project to allow behind-the-meter energy storage and fast electric vehicle (EV) charging. Meanwhile, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved a proposal to sustain a net metering credit until 2019. Overall, the behind-the-meter segment of the energy storage market increased 142 percent compared to the first quarter of 2015, according to GreenTechMedia's research. "By 2021, the U.S. energy storage market is expected to be worth $2.9 billion, a sixfold increase from 2015," the executive summary of the report stated. Utility-scale energy storage is the largest segment of the market and will continue to be for the next five years, increasing from $356 million in 2015 to $1.2 billion in 2021. The combined behind-the-meter segment's annual market will be worth about $1.6 billion in 2021, the report predicted. The industry is progressing on standardization of energy storage rules, addressing topics such as how to develop fast automatic gain control (AGC) signals, tariffs and storage classification. The report also noted an urgent request from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) directed toward Regional Transmission Organizations (RTO) and Independent System Operators (ISO) in the fourth quarter of 2015 to provide inventories of energy storage participation in their markets. Results are expected to provide industry perspective on storage interconnected at transmission systems, and storage interconnected at distribution systems and behind customer meters. For more:
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