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U.S. residential storage: a glimpse at the market

Published in: Solar, Talking Point, Exclusive Articles

U.S. residential storage: a glimpse at the market image

The U.S. is experiencing major growth in the energy storage market, and it's only the beginning. According to Wood Mackenzie Power and Renewables' U.S. Energy Storage Monitor Q2 2020, the market (residential, non-residential and front-of-the-meter) is expected to grow more than 13-fold from 523 MW in 2019 to nearly 7 GW by 2025, in spite of an expected, but temporary slowdown in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19. This will result primarily from storage-friendly policies and opportunities to provide wholesale market services for energy storage owners.

Front of the meter (FTM) storage leads the energy storage market at present and will continue to make up the bulk of the market. FTM and BTM refer to the position of the storage system in relation to the meter. FTM systems (i.e. utility scale projects) provide power to off-site locations and BTM systems (i.e. residential systems, on-site commercial, microgrids) provide power that can be used on-site, avoiding the need to pass through a meter.

Residential storage had its strongest quarter ever in Q4 2019 with 40.4 MW/93.3 MWh deployed in the U.S. There are multiple incentives that drive homeowners to add storage to their homes in the U.S.
including back-up, time-of-use arbitrage, self-consumption, and available grid & wholesale market services.

Back-up

Necessity of grid resilience during mass-grid outages emerged as a primary reason for storage in the U.S. residential sector. With increasing vulnerabilities to natural disasters, homeowners are beginning to look at adding residential storage for emergency back-up when the grid is down. California customers, who are increasingly finding themselves susceptible to wildfires, are beginning to see significant value in back-up power through energy storage. Meanwhile, Northeast customers are also looking to storage options for providing energy security during power outrages resulting from powerful tropical storms and hurricanes.

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