Almost every automaker working on electric cars is also currently looking at ways to leverage their battery technology development into other products. It started with Tesla’s launch of ‘Tesla Energy’ in 2015 and now BMW, Renault, Nissan, and several others have also launched similar products or even new energy divisions.

Daimler also launched its ‘Mercedes-Benz Energy’ subsidiary last year with a home battery pack to compete with Tesla’s Powerwall, but they are now killing the program.

At the time, Mercedes-Benz had taken a very similar approach to Tesla.

They partnered with Vivint, Tesla Energy’s biggest competitor in the residential solar market in the US, in order to deploy its energy storage system.

Tesla has been selling its battery packs independently since launching Tesla Energy in 2015, but it has focused on deployment through its own solar installations since its acquisition of SolarCity.

The company had been selling to other solar installers, but those companies had to find other alternatives since they would be helping the competition by buying from Tesla.

For example, Sunrun was carrying the Powerwall, but they switched to LG Chem after the SolarCity acquisition.

Vivint went with Mercedes, which was marketing its product like the Powerwall. Even its marketing images looked oddly similar to Tesla’s own advertising for solar and batteries:

Energy storage is a new disruptive trend. It basically involves storing energy that can later be harnessed for electricity to power our homes, our cars – our future. Energy storage is growing fast as it complements the renewable energy sectors of wind and solar.

For some background investors can read my 2016 article – “Energy Storage – The Dams Of Our Energy Future.“

The energy storage boom – Some quick facts

• Energy Storage News reported: “BNEF predicts 305GWh of energy storage worldwide by 2030. The Global energy storage market is forecast to grow 12-fold in the years (2016) to 2030″. Note this is cumulative not yearly. See graph below.
• Energy Storage reported: “IRENA: Batteries for energy storage could reach 250GWh by 2030.”
• IHS Markit – “The global deployment of grid-connected energy storage will grow from 1.3 GW in 2016 to 4.7 GW in 2020 and 8.8 GW in 2025.” That represents about a 7 times growth just for “grid connected.”
• Citigroup forecast that “the global battery storage market (not including car batteries) will surge to 240 gigawatts (GW) and $400 billion by the year 2030.”
• Utility Dive states: “The Brattle Group concludes the United States market for energy storage could reach 50,000 MW (50GW) (over the next decade) as long as battery prices to continue their decline and state and federal policies encourage the resource. “We are not quite there yet, but as costs decline further, storage will be transformative for the power industry.”
• Utility Dive states: “The growth of energy storage is being driven by rapidly falling lithium-ion module prices, which according to IHS have fallen 70% since 2012 and will fall below $200/kWh by 2019.”
• Energy Storage Networks reported: “According to GTM Research and ESA’s U.S Energy Storage Monitor 2016 Year in Review, lithium-ion represented at least 97% of all energy storage capacity deployed in 2016.”
• Citigroup stated in 2015 – “We see lithium-ion batteries as the best option for storage batteries.”