Report: US Energy Storage Market to Grow 250% in 2015

The US energy storage market will experience a breakout year in 2015, according to a new report from GTM Research and the Energy Storage Association (ESA) — with deployments surging to 220 megawatts (MW), up from 62 MW in 2014. That’s a greater than 3-fold increase, it bears noting.

The new report — the inaugural US Energy Storage Monitor report (a collaboration of GTM Research and ESA) — notes that, while 180 new grid-connected electrochemical and electromechanical storage installations came online in 2014, this number will be greatly eclipsed by what’s set for 2015.

The expected 3-fold increase is a pretty big jump on 2014’s growth — which was 40%. Of the 61.9 MW installed in 2014, 90% was in front of the meter, while ~10% was behind the meter (at residential, commercial, military, or nonprofit sites).

Despite the apparent disparity over the full year, the end of 2014 actually saw a big surge in behind-the-meter deployments (in the 4th quarter). This trend is expected to continue over the next few years — with behind-the-meter deployments eventually reaching 45% of total deployments by 2019, according to GTM Research.

“The US energy storage market is nascent but we expect it to pick up more speed this year,” stated Shayle Kann, Senior Vice President at GTM Research. “Attractive economics already exist across a broad array of applications, and system costs are in rapid decline. We expect some fits and starts but significant overall growth for the market in 2015.”

While the total US market is growing overall, there are definitely pockets of particularly high growth — PJM, in particular (Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia), but California as well. Apparently ⅔ of all deployed capacity in 2014 was in PJM.

As far as the modality of energy storage, lithium-ion batteries were supreme — with 70% of all deployments being via the tried and true technology.

The lead author of the new report, the energy storage analyst Ravi Manghani, stated: “The next 5 years will be all about growth.”

GTM Research is predicting that by 2019 the US energy storage market will hit 861 MW a year — with a valuation of $1.5 billion. That represents an 11-fold increase over 2014.

Here are some of the key findings of the report:

• The US energy storage market grew 40% in 2014, after installing 61.9 MW
• 90% of energy storage was in the front of the meter
• Weighted average system prices were $2064 kW in 2014
• The total energy storage market size in 2014 was $128 million
• GTM Research forecasts 220 MW of energy storage installations in 2015
• By 2019, the us will be an 861 MW annual market, valued at $1.5 billion

Related Story: 42 Battery Storage Companies To Watch

Image Credits: GTM Research/ESA US Energy Storage Monitor