Despite slight slowing in commercial and industrial installations due to COVID-19, the U.S. energy storage industry saw record-breaking deployments during the second quarter of 2020, and rapid expansion is expected to continue in the months to come.
The industry deployed 168 MW of storage during the second quarter, a 72% increase over the first quarter of 2020 and a 117% increase year-over-year. The industry’s quarterly record, set in Q4 2019, is 186.4 MW, according to the U.S. Energy Storage Monitor released Sept. 3 by the U.S Energy Storage Association and Wood Mackenzie.
Although the numbers are not yet final, the industry already expects to post more records before the year is done, according to Dan Finn-Foley, head of energy storage at Wood Mackenzie.
“We already know that Q3 will be a big quarter,” he said. “Based on what we’re seeing now, it would be surprising if Q3 is not a big increase over Q2.”
Energy storage is still a small enough market that a single large installation can give a significant boost to the larger industry, Finn-Foley said, and several large systems are expected to come online toward the end of 2020.
A single large utility-scale deployment in California accounted for more than two-thirds of the total front-of-meter deployment during the second quarter of this year, but Finn-Foley said the bulk of this past quarter’s activity came from residential markets.
“Desire for resilience in California is growing,” Finn-Foley said, “and in Hawaii, pretty much everyone is getting storage to go with solar.”
Those two states, Finn-Foley said, accounted for 80% of residential deployments. Government incentives continue to drive demand for residential installations, he added.
Utility-scale installations are more geographically dispersed, and in the coming months and years, this segment is expected to drive the greatest growth for energy storage, Finn-Foley said.
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