March 11, 2021: Energy storage in the US is reaching new heights, according to Wood Mackenzie and the US Energy Storage Association in their latest US Energy Storage Monitor report released in early March. Some 2,156MWh of new energy storage systems were brought online in Q4 of last year. This is an increase of 182% from Q3 2020, making Q4 the new record quarter for US storage.

As prices fall and barriers to storage deployment are eroded, front-of-the-meter storage is taking off in the US — 4MW out of every 5MW deployed in Q4 were FTM storage. The segment contributed 529MW out of the total 651MW of storage deployed in Q4. California had the lion’s share of Q4 FTM deployments, according to the report.

At 90.1MW deployed, residential storage projects made up 14% of the MW total for Q4. After gradual growth in deployments over the first three quarters of 2020, Q4 saw a notable residential spike, driven in large part by homeowner interest in California.

Massachusetts led the non-residential segment in Q4, which is growing more slowly than the other two US storage segments and deployed 76.5MWh during the quarter. California and Hawaii also saw several new projects come online.

In 2020 overall, 1,464MW/3,487MWh of new storage came online in the US 179% more storage was added in 2020 than in 2019 in MW terms. The US storage market will add five times more MW of storage in 2025 than was added in 2020, with FTM storage continuing to contribute between 75%-85% of new MW each year.

“2020 is the first year that advanced energy storage deployments surpassed gigawatt scale — a tremendous milestone on the path to our aspiration of 100 GW by 2030,” said Jason Burwen, US Energy Storage Association Interim CEO. “With continuing storage cost declines and growing policy support and regulatory reform in states and the federal government, energy storage is on an accelerating trajectory to enable a resilient, decarbonized, and affordable electric grid for all.”

“The data truly speaks for itself,” said Dan Finn-Foley, Wood Mackenzie head of energy storage. “The US installed 3,115MWh of storage from 2013 through 2019, a total that 2020 has beaten in a single year. This is the hallmark of a market beginning to accelerate exponentially, and momentum will only increase over the coming years. The new largest battery in the world, the 300MW/1,200MWh system newly installed at Moss Landing, likely won’t hold the title for long.”

Q4 was the most eye-catching quarter to date for the residential market. California contributed most residential storage deployments in 2020 and Hawaii was also a very active market, while states in the northeast, the midwest, the mid-Atlantic and the southeast are forecast to see growth over the next few years.

“Battery backup is already becoming somewhat of a contested concept in the industry, as it can have different meanings depending on the installer or vendor,” said Chloe Holden, Wood Mackenzie research analyst. “But the ability of solar-plus-storage to provide backup is increasingly driving sales even in markets without additional incentives, particularly states that suffer from regular power outages. We expect an uptick in home battery sales in Texas in the aftermath of February’s devastating outages.”

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