Good things appear to be in store for the energy storage industry in the new year, with a number of sources pointing to major movement in 2014, thanks in great part to drastically falling prices in energy storage technology.
Lux Research predicted in September of last year that the solar energy storage market was poised for dramatic growth, riding on the back of the boom that has brought rooftop solar into the mainstream. The two technologies seem perfect complements for one another, especially in Australia, where the feed-in tariff incentives for exporting excess solar power to the grid have essentially evaporated.
Corroborating this view, SolarCity, the largest installer of rooftop solar PV systems in the USA and also one of the first companies to offer solar as a fully financed, ‘solar leasing‘ product, recently used the word ‘inevitable‘ in reference to the future of its usage. SolarCity’s senior director of grid systems integration storage Eric Carlson, in an interview with PV Tech magazine, said that the company “sees energy storage ultimately as inevitable. As we look toward the future where we convert our grid to be largely powered by renewable sources [including] solar and wind, we think energy storage will be a key component of that system.”
Meanwhile, Cleantechnica.com’s Zachary Shahan published a piece well worth a read that contains a collection of links to articles published over the past few years that highlight the ‘disruptive drop’ in the price of energy storage (particularly lithium-ion batteries) that has been underway. Although the article focuses on electric vehicle batteries (EVs), the growing popularity of EVs has been one of the prime drivers of the development of more affordable battery technologies, and certainly has spill-over into the world of residential and commercial solar PV.
Top image by Claus Ableiter, via Wikipedia.
© 2014 Solar Choice Pty Ltd
He is now the communications manager for energy technology startup SwitchDin, but remains an occasional contributor to the Solar Choice blog.
James lives in Newcastle in a house with a weird solar system.
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