US Energy Storage Increases 46% In 3rd Quarter, According To GTM
New figures from GTM Research and the Energy Storage Association published this week show that energy storage deployments in the United States were up 46% year-over-year in the third quarter, and up 10% over the previous quarter.
GTM Research published its latest US Energy Storage Monitor in conjunction with the Energy Storage Association (ESA) which showed a total of 41.8 MW (megawatts) worth of new energy storage capacity was deployed in the third quarter of 2017, representing an increase of 46% year-over-year and 10% quarter-over-quarter.
The front-of-meter energy storage segment accounted for the greater share of new deployments in the third quarter, and while the increase over previous quarters is good news, it can be tempered somewhat by the fact that 30 megawatts (MW) of the total 41.8 MW came from a single Texas energy storage project. There were nevertheless smaller utility-scale projects coming online in Florida, Tennessee, and Massachusetts.
Texas led the way in the utility-scale segment with its 30 MW project, followed by Massachusetts with 0.5 MW. Behind-the-meter, however, California continued to dominate, deploying a total of 1,870 kW (kilowatts) of residential storage (followed by Hawaii with 1,218 kW) and a total of 6,544 kW of non-residential storage. Residential storage benefited from California’s new Self-Generation Incentive Program and Hawaii’s Customer Self-Supply Program, which helped drive numbers to “a new high-water mark” and, on average, 9 new grid-connected home energy storage systems deployed per day.
GTM Research also highlighted the increasing role that energy storage is having in utilities’ Integrated Resource Planning (IRP), with utilities across 14 states including nearly 2 GW (gigawatts) worth of storage into their IRP thinking.
“Energy storage is increasingly acknowledged in utilities’ long-term resource planning across the country,” said Ravi Manghani, GTM Research’s director of energy storage. “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. It’s also encouraging to see consistent mention of multiple values that storage can provide to the grid.”
“Energy storage deployments are increasing rapidly, as more policymakers and grid planners are recognizing the many benefits of storage,” said Kelly Speakes-Backman, CEO of the Energy Storage Association. “Coupled with policies that provide a clear signal to markets, and regulatory reforms that compensate storage for the full value it offers, we see this trend continuing toward 35 gigawatts by 2025.”
Looking forward, GTM Research expects that 2017 will end with a total of 295 MW having been deployed, up 28% from the 231 MW deployed in 2016. Beyond 2017, GTM expects growth of almost 9-times between 2017 and 2022, with annual energy storage deployment crossing the 1 GW barrier in 2019. By 2022, GTM expects annual installations to reach 2,535 MW.
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