A look at the booming energy storage market
May 4, 2015
GTM Research predicted that the market for energy storage in the U.S. is expected to see a massive bump from $218 million worth of investments in 2014 to $1.5 billion in storage spending in 2019, reported Utility Dive. The energy storage marketplace is booming and one reason is acceptance of the solution by utilities.
Utilities are finally getting caught up on energy storage
One clue as to the future direction of energy storage deployment can be found in the survey performed by Utility Dive. The questionnaire picked the brains of more than 400 energy executives, and over 50 percent of respondents noted that they believe energy storage should be the top priority investment for companies. The response was especially telling in that utility decision-makers ranked energy storage as a viable solution for the needs of utility companies ahead of other key energy strategies like microgrid deployment and the generation of power via rooftop solar cells.
Ravi Manghani, the author of the Utility Dive report, emphasized that the lack of nationwide energy storage incentive programs available for utilities points toward even greater potential for the technology's adoption in the future. The resource's optimistic expectations for energy storage use by utilities also reflects a shift in the industry's attitude toward energy storage as a complementary industry.
Energy storage may displace natural gas applications
Another place where greater adoption of energy storage technology is expected to have a major impact is in the natural gas market. Energy Priorities pointed out that the growing popularity of energy storage both as a means of offsetting dependence of gas-powered peak plants and as a way to make the grid more resilient has begun to steal some of the spotlight from last year's natural gas boom. After all, the costs of new fossil fuel plants costs are a big investment for the utilities and coal is polluting. Distributed energy storage applications, however, enhance the effects of renewables and are instantly dispatchable resources that offer consumers long-term cost savings.
The advantages of energy storage see global relevance
The benefits of energy storage deployment aren't limited to solving energy quandaries in the U.S.. Many highly developed countries share similar energy grid woes, so storage booms on one side of the Atlantic are extremely telling for market analysis experts on the other side.
In fact, data collected by Taiyou Research revealed that executives and legislators around the world are exploring energy storage as an alternative to more established energy solutions. This growing interest in energy storage is expected, in turn, to help the global market for energy storage technology exceed $29 billion in revenues by 2022.
