Italy could be poised to overtake Germany as Europe’s top energystoragemarket after the turn of the decade, a new report predicts.
The European Market Monitor on Energy Storage, compiled by Delta-ee on behalf of the European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE), forecasts Italian behind-the-meter installations could soar after 2021.
The market will be driven by local subsidies, coupled with a strong solar market, said report author Valts Grintals, product manager for the energy storage research service at Delta-ee.
Unlike previous reports, which tended of focus on single European energy storage markets, this market monitor has a pan-European scope, covering Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Iberia, the Nordics, Central and Eastern Europe, and the rest of the continent.
It shows, for example, that the Nordic countries could see strong demand for commercial and industrial energy storage systems, coupled to the growth of data centers in the region. The research also allows for comparisons between subsidy- and non-subsidy-driven markets.
Germany and Italy are good examples subsidy-driven markets. Alternatively, the U.K. has scaled purely on the back of decreasing costs for energy storage and market signals, just as solar feed-in tariffs are phased out.
In the U.K., behind-the-meter storage still does not really make much economic sense. But the market is starting to take off regardless, in part thanks to off-the-shelf solar-plus-storage offerings such the one launched by Ikea in August.
Ikea estimates the systems will save homeowners up to £560 ($741) per year, or about 67 percent more than the savings from solar panels alone, allowing for a 12-year payback for a typical customer, or a 6 percent annual return on investment.
The growth in behind-the-meter storage in Britain reflects a predicted decline in the importance of front-of-meter installations across Europe.
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