{"id":4319,"date":"2020-05-29T12:56:03","date_gmt":"2020-05-29T20:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/solarpowerinvestor.com\/?p=4319"},"modified":"2022-06-15T22:35:14","modified_gmt":"2020-08-12T23:23:57","slug":"five-trends-driving-growth-in-energy-storage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/solarpowerinvestor.com\/five-trends-driving-growth-in-energy-storage\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Trends Driving Growth in Energy Storage"},"content":{"rendered":"
2019 was a record-breaking year for energy storage. In fact, in the final quarter of the year, a As investorsâ understanding of storage and the need for it has grown, so has their willingness to invest without long-term contracted revenue. The energy sectorâs shift to renewables means that weâre relying more and more on intermittent resources like wind and solar. That means that storage can play a critical role in smoothing out volatile energy pricing and become increasingly valuable to the grid. Sophisticated investors are increasingly comfortable that this environment will allow storage to provide good returns on their capital, even without the relative certainty of a long-term revenue contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As storage manufacturing scales up, demand grows and technology improves, the price of batteries has steadily fallen in recent years. In fact, Lazardâs November 2019 analysis<\/a> found that the levelized cost of storage had decreased nearly 15 percent in the last year. As the industry continues to identify efficiencies in manufacturing and the supply chain, we can expect this trend to persist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Warranty and augmentation packages provide investors in storage with confidence and peace of mind. Over the last few years, our intelligence has grown about the lifespan of a battery and the probability of its failure, and thatâs made a significant difference in the cost of 15-year service contracts. This significantly reduces operating cost uncertainty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
total of 364.2 MWh of storage<\/a> was deployed in the U.S. market. The technology is projected to
result in grid operational cost savings of $755 million in 2020<\/a>. Itâs clear that storage is no longer
coming; it has arrived and is here to stay. Not only is storage a cost-effective way to a cleaner,
more renewable grid; itâs become an essential component of developing a disruption-proof
grid.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWe identified five trends that are driving this explosive growth in storage:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
1.<\/strong> Increased financing appetite for merchant revenue streams.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
2.<\/strong> Pricing for batteries continues to fall.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
3. Warranty and augmentation packages are getting cheaper and more standardized.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n