This last year of the decade proved to be a pivotal year for energy storage technology, as major developments underscored why it is so vital for energy markets. Events such as widespread power outages and transmission issues on a global scale have led to the precipitous rise in energy storage deployments. The energy industry has been working hard to usher in this paradigm shift, and now mainstream consumers –residents and businesses alike– are finally becoming acutely aware of the importance of energy storage.
Battery storage installations in the U.S. in 2018 totaled 311 MW and 777 MWh, up from next to nothing just six years prior. More significant, industry research groups predict that capacities for energy storage will rise exponentially in the next five years. In fact, global energy storage deployments are expected to grow thirteen-fold over the next six years, from a 12 GWh market in 2018 to a 158 GWh market in 2024, according to Wood Mackenzie. This is just the beginning.
Before we take a closer look at what’s next in 2020 and beyond, let’s take a quick look back at 2019 and some of the big stories driving this paradigm shift in the energy market.
Market Drivers: Blackouts, Evolving Energy Infrastructure
The widespread adoption of energy storage solutions is being driven not only by the need for more renewables, but by exponential growth in energy demand, rising energy costs, and inefficient grid systems, as we saw with the outages that hit major cities without warning.
In New York City there were critical blackouts that left more than 72,000 Con Edison customers without power for five hours due to transmission issues. In London, more than a million households and businesses were left in the dark, and commuters stranded, when the lights went out across the city. The cause: a lightning strike that caused two power generators on the National Grid to go offline.
And, as the world watched, California wildfires and subsequent PG&E preemptive blackouts (to avoid further wildfires) afflicted as many as 1.3 million people in the state and threatened to disrupt critical emergency and rescue services. These preventative power cuts have cost California’s economy upward of $2 billion, according to some estimates.
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