Navigant Research Identifies 1,700 Energy Storage Projects

The growth of energy storage from a complementary but ultimately unnecessary addition to renewable energy projects to a valuable standalone commodity has rocked the energy world and even entrenched fossil fuel-dependent countries like Australia, and new figures from Navigant Research identify over 1,700 energy storage projects around the world.

Clean energy technology research firm Navigant Research published its Energy Storage Tracker 3Q17 report this week in which it identifies more than 1,700 energy storage projects worldwide, well up from the 1,420 energy storage projects in existence identified in the first quarter of this year. The following chart outlines new deployed storage power capacity across global markets year-to-date through to the end of the third-quarter of 2017:

New Announced Energy Storage Power Capacity by Technology and Region, World Markets: 3Q 2017

“The global energy storage industry is poised to continue to grow quickly over the next several years, especially in emerging economies,” said Ian McClenny, research analyst with Navigant Research. “With emerging infrastructure becoming increasingly integrated, dynamic, and complex, flexible resources like storage will provide added value to existing and new power generating assets.”

Further, improvements in energy storage technologies, developing regional regulatory and market drivers, and emerging new business models are all poised to drive the growth of the energy storage industry, according to Navigant Research. More than growth in the sector itself, Navigant predicts a growing need for energy storage around the world.

Authors of the Tracker highlighted several factors which they expect will drive global need for energy storage, including first and foremost the development of new distributed and intermittent variable generation sources such as solar PV and wind. Further, however, Navigant predicts that the restructuring of electricity markets will also create new value streams for energy storage. Population and load profiles will also play “a critical role” in the structure and operation of electricity grids, thus influencing the development of energy storage markets. And finally, regions with relatively unstable grids and frequent outages might benefit from distributed energy storage systems and microgrids with storage.