The United States had its largest ever quarter for energy storage deployment this year, deploying 234 megawatt-hours worth of energy storage across the first quarter of the year, representing a more than fiftyfold growth as compared to the same quarter a year earlier.

GTM Research published its latest U.S. Energy Storage Monitor in conjunction with the Energy Storage Association (ESA) this week. The report includes two primary figures — 71 megawatts (MW) of new energy storage deployed in the first quarter, a 276% growth over the first quarter of 2016, but a 50% decrease on the fourth quarter of 2016, continuing a long-running trend that sees the first quarter of a new year slowing somewhat on the overactive previous fourth quarter. The second figure is the record-breaking 233.7 MWh of energy storage deployed in the first quarter, a 2% increase over the immediately-preceding fourth quarter, but a mammoth 944% increase over the first quarter of 2016.

“Much of this growth can be attributed to a shift from short-duration projects to medium- and long-duration projects in the utility-scale market, along with a surge of deployments geared to offset the Aliso Canyon natural gas leak,” said Ravi Manghani, GTM Research’s director of energy storage. “Although, the industry shouldn’t get too comfortable, as with fulfilment of Aliso Canyon deployments, there aren’t that many 10+ megawatt-hour projects in the 2017 pipeline, indicating that the first quarter may be the largest quarter this year.”

Overall, front-of-meter energy storage deployment accounted for 91% of all deployments in the quarter. Behind-the-meter deployments declined 27% year-over-year, in terms of MWh, and GTM and the ESA pin this slowdown on a pause in California’s Self-Generation Incentive Program. California ranked first in terms of non-residential and utility-scale energy storage deployment, but ranked third in terms of residential deployment, while Hawaii ranked second across the board.

Looking forward, GTM Research predicts that the US energy storage market will grow to approximately 2.6 gigawatts (GW) in 2022. Behind-the-meter energy storage will account for 53% of the annual storage market by 2022, up from 20% of the 2016 market, while California will unsurprisingly remain “the undisputed emperor of the US energy storage market over the next five years.” Filling second place will be battled out between Arizona, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, and Texas, each likely to represent a significant portion of deployments through 2022.

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Described in a recent report as the “undisputed king” of the energy storage industry, California continues to blaze new trails, now with legislation to boost customer-sited energy storage.

The California Senate recently passed SB 700, which creates incentives for customer-sited energy storage in homes, schools, farms and businesses. Next, the bill moves to the state Assembly.

The 10-year rebate program, called the Energy Storage Initiative, provides up to $1.4 billion and lets the PUC set the total amount, said Laura Gray, energy storage policy advisor with the California Solar Energy Industries Association. It aims to make storage more accessible to consumers.

“California is once again showing its leadership on clean energy. Just as the state revolutionized solar, it has the opportunity to transform the market of customer-sited energy storage,” Gray said. “With this bill California would be the first state to create a market transformational program dedicated to local energy storage.”

Undisputed king for next five years

Separately, GTM Research and the Energy Storage Association (ESA) reported this week that California “will remain the undisputed king of the U.S. storage market over the next five years.”  Arizona, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York and Texas vie for second place.

California helped drive what proved to be a record-breaking first quarter for energy storage in the United States. GTM and ESA’s latest “U.S. Energy Storage Monitor” reported that 234 MWh of energy storage was deployed, a 944 percent rise over the first quarter last year.

Ravi Manghani, GTM Research’s director of energy storage, attributed the big leap in part to a large battery deployment made to bolster reliability following natural gas leaks at California’s Aliso Canyon.

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The first quarter of 2017 was the biggest in history for the U.S. energy storage market.

According to GTM Research and the Energy Storage Association’s (ESA) latest U.S. Energy Storage Monitor, 234 megawatt-hours of energy storage were deployed in the first quarter, which represents more than fiftyfold growth year-over-year.

When measured in megawatts, it was the third-largest quarter in history, ranking behind only the fourth quarters of 2015 and 2016. Front-of-meter deployments grew 591 percent year-over-year, boosted by a few large projects in Arizona, California and Hawaii.

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) is well placed to reap the benefits of rapid moves towards energy storage in a new renewables environment. The Trump Administration’s withdrawal for the Paris Accords is effectively being ignored by the rest of the world.

My article in March outlined the company’s potential strengths and opportunities. Since then Tesla’s offerings have started to be ramped up by the company. There is little doubt about the potential but also little doubt that this will be a competitive market. For instance a similarly vertically integrated company, BYD Co Ltd (OTCPK:BYDDY), is already making inroads in this area and other Chinese companies may be fierce competitors.

Developments in the US

It is no coincidence that at the Stockholders Meeting this week, Elon Musk focused on the total energy storage offering.

As he referred in his address:

“The beginning of the transition of Tesla to a fully integrated sustainable energy company where you have solar creating energy, then the stationary battery pack, the “Powerwall” and “Powerpack”storing the energy and then that energy being used in the electric vehicle.”

All these applications can be linked together now for the consumer by a mobile phone app.

Doubters have considered that there will not be demand for homeowners to install big expensive batteries in their residences. In the past net metering had meant this was largely the case. If a homeowner saved energy during the day through, say, solar panels, this could be sent back to the grid and therefore there was no point in storing it via an expensive battery.

However utilities in the US are now starting to offer deals to compensate for energy storage. Batteries will start to be used not just for back-up power but will allow for integration with utilities.

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Alternate energy has this one major flaw. It is very weather dependent. It depends so much on whether the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. If either reduces in intensity or stops so does its respective energy output.

Since this form of energy conversion has an element of randomness it needs a backup system. Like harvest days of old, you had to store your grain if you were to get through the winter. So while the sun shines and the wind is blowing, these key alternate energy devices must make hay, metaphorically speaking. To make the most of the sun or wind, the unused energy must be converted and stored. To date the best means of storage is over 100 years old, the lead acid battery.

Permit me, s’il vous plait, and divert for a moment to point out that there are many other forms of storage. For example, there is electrolysis that can produce hydrogen; there is water storage where power plants during their idling time, pump water into a reservoir, which in turn runs a turbine during peak times; and heat storage in salt beds where thermal mass is needed, for example, to heat a space at night. These means are less productive and not used on a grand scale.

As for batteries the diversity is just too numerous and complex for this article. I would not even scratch the surface in the space here. Battery research is omnipresent; some new material or chemistry comes out nearly everyday. However, I would like to ask you to keep graphene in mind. I believe it will be the ubiquitous atomic structure of the future. Even though it’s “just” another form of carbon, it will be these technologies that will someday make electrical energy storage fast, lightweight, and sustainable both in structure and output.

The most readily used means of electrical energy storage today is the battery. There are many types of batteries. In general the main problem with these storage systems is their lack of capacity. Additionally, battery systems are very bulky, they need maintenance and they can be a fire hazard. They also require a relatively long time to charge. The Carter administration proposed multifuel vehicles, this when Elon Musk was in grade school. One of these multifuels considered were batteries.

However, politics got in the way of advancing battery technology. Ronald Reagan stopped the funding for Carter’s energy projects and increased funding for fossil fuel and nuclear research. If it weren’t for Elon Musk and the advent of portable devices in proliferation today, battery advancement would still be stuck where it was 10 years ago. It should be noted that Edison’s iron nickel battery is still the most durable design to date. Some of his batteries are still in use today, 100 years later. I am considering them for my own solar power backup. However they are quite expensive. Lead acid batteries are by far the safest, most affordable, and most reliable electrical energy storage system to date. This technology’s origins are arguably over 200 years old. Batteries were discovered in Baghdad, possibly as far back as 2,000 years. It is believed they were used for electroplating. How they came into being is yet to be discovered. Even more mysterious is why did they disappear?

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Powervault and Renault are placing 50 home storage units into UK households already fitted with solar arrays. The trials will incorporate second-life EV batteries provided by the carmaker to reduce the cost of the unit by 30%.

Renaults programme director for EV batteries and infrastructures Nicolas Schottey said: “Thanks to this home energy storage partnership with Powervault, Renault is adding a new element into its global strategy for second life batteries, which already covers a large number of usages from industrial to residential building and districts. 

“The second life use not only gives additional life to electric vehicle batteries before they are recycled, but also allow consumers to save money. It’s a win-win-win: for EV owners, home-owners and the planet.”

The units will be provided to homes of M&S Energy customers, a community-tariff arm of the retailer, Hyde residents, social housing tenants and in schools in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. M&S Energy, which has been supplying 100% green electricity since 2015, will reach out to consumers to discuss their interest in participating.

Aimed at creating the “tipping point” for a mass-market roll-out of energy storage in the UK, the partnership explores the technical performance of second-life batteries and customer reactions to the concept.

Renault EV batteries typically have a lifetime of eight to 10 years. Through the trials, these batteries are removed from vehicles, unpacked and then graded before being integrated into smaller battery packs. Through the Powervault system, the batteries are given an estimated 10 years of additional life use.

Storage scores

Powervault believes that the smart meter rollout will make all of the 26m UK homes eligible for the system, regardless of whether they have solar arrays equipped. The company has launched a crowd-funding page on CrowdCube to raise equity for the systems.

Renault is the latest established car manufacturer to venture into this field. In April 2017, Daimler attempted to replicate Tesla’s energy storage plans through the Mercedes-Benz brand, which wants to introduce a “private energy revolution” to UK.

Elsewhere, BMW is using energy storage as a crux for its new operating model, which focuses heavily on the circular economy.

At the forefront of the EV transition is Japanese carmaker Nissan, which is trialling vehicle-to-grid energy systems in the UK, through a partnership with the National Grid.

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Prioritising behind-the-meter value

The US state of California’s Senate has approved a bill that would provide rebates to customers for the purchase of energy storage systems, bringing the legislation a step closer to introduction.

The bill, SB 700, was introduced by Democratic Senator Scott Wiener, along with SB 71, which is a mandate for new buildings to include rooftop solar in their construction. Both passed the Senate by a 23-13 vote and are now to be passed over to the State Assembly for consideration.

SB 700 is designed to encourage the use of energy storage to load shift solar, particularly for use at night. It should help the state mitigate its famous “duck curve”, the graphical representation of solar overproduction in the morning until early afternoon and lack of solar to meet demand in the evening peak. Smoothing and shifting solar generation loads into the late afternoon and early evening would cut into that difficult peak of demand, when normally solar would not be able to cover it.

“By supporting and incentivizing the development of better and more efficient energy storage technologies, SB 700 will reduce the costs for energy storage just as previous rebate programs did for solar power,” a statement from Scott Wiener’s office said.

Also known as the Energy Storage Initiative, SB 700 would take money authorised for the state’s existing SGIP (Self-Generation Incentive Programme), which is due to expire in 2019, and add a separate energy storage programme, which would be in place until 2027. Securing funding for a whole decade would add stability to an energy storage market and help bring down costs. The bill also stipulates that 30% of the rebate is reserved for low income residential and disadvantaged communities and for job training and workforce development.

“California can continue to lead the clean energy revolution that is cleaning our air and staving off the worst impacts of climate change. We can’t continue to use fossil fuels when we have better options.  SB 700 allows solar power to work at night,” Dan Jacobson, state director of non-profit Environment California said.

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