Tag Archives: growth

Utilities Are Catching On To The Energy Storage Revolution (At Least If Growth Is An Indication)

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

It’s easy to lose sight in today’s electricity market that energy storage isn’t only happening on an individual homeowner level. In fact, a recent study showed that utilities increased their battery storage capacity 68% to 1.3 GWh in 2017.

That number comes from a utility survey conducted by the Smart Electric Power Alliance, an utility-focused trade organization. The survey itself is behind a paywall, but pv magazine has the goods. For example:

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The use of longer-duration batteries, able to discharge for several hours, has enabled balancing of solar with widespread storage, as in California and Hawaii, and with co-located solar + storage installations, as in Hawaii and Florida.

Also:

California utilities remained far in the lead in storage energy capacity, in response to state storage policies that support renewable goals. California added 75 percent of the nation’s incremental battery energy capacity in 2017, and was home to nearly 60 percent of the cumulative energy capacity.

The looming question is whether what you’re seeing in the utility-scale battery market is the same phenomenon you saw with solar power back in that industry’s infancy, to wit: Utilities, with their economies of scale, tried to eliminate competition with residential distributed generation. It’s a fight they’re still waging (see our report on Kansas from earlier today) and, while they may not be winning any enormous victories, it’s a drain on the overall industry potential.

pv magazine also flags this juicy piece of information regarding what will drive further economically advantageous storage options at the utility level:

FERC Order 841 directs RTOs/ISOs (regional transmission organizations and independent system operators) to allow a storage resource to sell into the wholesale market all capacity, energy, and ancillary services that the resource is technically capable of providing.

According to the report, this order alone would add up to 50 GW of energy storage capacity, if all the benefits from storage were realized.

Go read the whole article – it’s a fascinating discussion of where we are in the energy-storage market, at least from the standpoint of the utilities.

More:

US grid-connected battery energy capacity grew 68% last year

U.S. Solar Continues To Grow Despite Significant Headwinds

U.S. solar

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

First the good news: The overall U.S. solar industry grew year over year by 13%, adding 2.5 GW-DC in the first quarter of 2018.

Now the bad news: That’s a 37% quarter-over-quarter decrease.

So the latest quarterly U.S. Solar Market Insights Report, put out by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and GTM Research, is a bit of a mixed bag. But the fact that the U.S. solar market has shown any growth at all, in light of heavy tariffs on module imports, flat residential growth and a significant decrease in “non-residential” installations, is a good sign that the industry may well weather the storms.

“The solar industry had a strong showing in the first quarter,” said SEIA President and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper. “This data shows that solar has become a common-sense option for much of the U.S. and is too strong to be set back for long, even in light of the tariffs. States from California to Florida have stepped up with smart policies that will drive investment for years to come.”

“This is a promising indicator that constraints to residential PV growth like segment-wide customer acquisition challenges and national installer pullback are abating,” GTM Senior Analyst Austin Perea said. “However, these problems are not entirely solved, as we’re seeing slowdowns in states with a relatively high penetration of PV installations.”

The report notes that the three most active markets – New York, New Jersey and Maryland – will continue to contract, but Perea said he expects those declines to be offset by increases in emerging markets. In particular, Perea cited Florida – a market SolarWakeup has reported on extensively as it has taken off this quarter – as one of the significant bright spots as solar development skyrocketed in the state. In part, solar’s growth in the Sunshine State is being fueled by increasingly active third-party solar options, like Sunrun’s lease and Sunnova’s loan programs.

So far this year, Florida has added more solar than it did in all of 2016, which was the high-water mark for solar development in the United States so far.

GTM says it expects growth in the overall U.S. market will be flat, although the analysis couldn’t have foreseen the recent Chinese decision to decimate its own solar market which, if the module oversupply spills into the United States, could spark unanticipated growth in the U.S. solar market as markets that the tariffs had closed suddenly open again.