According to Wood Mackenzie and the American Clean Power Association’s (ACP) latest US Energy Storage Monitor report released this week, the volume of US grid-scale installations was four times the volume seen in Q1 of last year, despite continued procurement difficulties and project delays.
“Quarter one of 2022 was the largest first quarter on record by far for grid-scale installations, a notable milestone since installations are typically back-weighted to the second half of the year” said Vanessa Witte, senior analyst with Wood Mackenzie’s energy storage team. “The West Coast and Southwest regions continue to dominate for both standalone and hybrid systems. Despite significant growth, near-term risks remain for the grid-scale market. Market disruption from the anti-dumping and countervailing duties (AD/CVD) solar tariff investigation initiated by the Department of Commerce in March lowered projections for hybrid projects significantly in 2022, and to a lesser extent in 2023, as procurement stalled.”
John Hensley, Vice President of Research and Analytics at ACP, added that the Biden Administration’s recent decision to pause AD/CVD solar tariffs for two years restores predictability to both the solar and energy storage markets and that with well over 50 percent of utility storage projects being paired with solar farms, this important executive action will help the energy storage market continue to accelerate.
Residential storage also had its strongest quarter to date with 334 MWh installed in Q1, beating the previous quarterly record of 283 MWh in Q4 of last year.
Chloe Holden, analyst with Wood Mackenzie, said that despite challenging supply conditions continuing to suppress residential storage, the segment saw over 20,000 installations in a single quarter for the first time.
“We’re seeing large and small installers forge new vendor partnerships to help meet rising customer demand” said Ms Holden.
By 2026, the residential storage segment is forecasted to grow by 5.7 GWh annually, with California’s Net Energy Metering (NEM) 3.0 expected to align with the California Public Utilities Commission’s December 2021 proposed decision with implementation now on a delayed timeline.
Non-residential storage is predicted to grow 1 GW annually by 2026, but the overall market forecast has been downgraded due in part to AD/CVD-related procurement delays. Overall, the US energy storage market added 955 MW and 2,875 MWh across all segments in the first quarter of 2022.
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