Energy Storage Takes the Grid by Storm at the EIA Conference, Part 1

on June 14, 2018

At various points every monthevery quarter and every year we look forward to the data releases of the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Information Administration (EIA), as they represent the formal, official and most detailed data on energy in the United States.

At the 2018 EIA Energy Conference, the tightly delivered 15-minute presentations varied from oil, and gas, to electric and automated cars, with a touch of efficiency and energy storage – and of course a whole lot of data. EIA staff members dutifully worked their stations interacting with conference attendees and shared great conversations at the networking lunches.

Specifically, the topic of energy storage was all about growth and how the industry is no longer just talking about energy storage, but deploying projects in the real world with real benefits, consequences and savings

Lisa Cabral, of the U.S. Energy Information Administration, delivered Energy Storage: a U.S. overview (PDF). At a high level, Lisa’s presentation showed that the CAISO and PJM ISO reigons dominated the 664 MW of power and 742 MWh of of large-scale (over 1 MW) energy storage that is now operational. This was driven by state policy and market rules, and the large majority of this volume is lithium-ion batteries.

Many of the slides create a clear picture of the evolution of the industry since the early 2000s – expanding regions, product type (spoiler above), pricing,  as well some future market size projections.

The diversity of applications speaks of the many ways we’re going to come to depend on this solid-state electricity and energy source.

One slide that we most recently saw a large shift around was the residential/small scale volume relative to the big players. Just last week, GTM Research showed us that residential storage grew almost 9x over Q1 2017, representing almost 28% of all energy storage MWh deployed. We’ve been expecting this of course, as the customer has spoken.

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Fractal Energy Storage ConsultantsEnergy Storage Takes the Grid by Storm at the EIA Conference, Part 1