Described in a recent report as the “undisputed king” of the energy storage industry, California continues to blaze new trails, now with legislation to boost customer-sited energy storage.
The California Senate recently passed SB 700, which creates incentives for customer-sited energy storage in homes, schools, farms and businesses. Next, the bill moves to the state Assembly.
The 10-year rebate program, called the Energy Storage Initiative, provides up to $1.4 billion and lets the PUC set the total amount, said Laura Gray, energy storage policy advisor with the California Solar Energy Industries Association. It aims to make storage more accessible to consumers.
“California is once again showing its leadership on clean energy. Just as the state revolutionized solar, it has the opportunity to transform the market of customer-sited energy storage,” Gray said. “With this bill California would be the first state to create a market transformational program dedicated to local energy storage.”
Undisputed king for next five years
Separately, GTM Research and the Energy Storage Association (ESA) reported this week that California “will remain the undisputed king of the U.S. storage market over the next five years.” Arizona, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York and Texas vie for second place.
California helped drive what proved to be a record-breaking first quarter for energy storage in the United States. GTM and ESA’s latest “U.S. Energy Storage Monitor” reported that 234 MWh of energy storage was deployed, a 944 percent rise over the first quarter last year.
Ravi Manghani, GTM Research’s director of energy storage, attributed the big leap in part to a large battery deployment made to bolster reliability following natural gas leaks at California’s Aliso Canyon.
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