United States Q1 storage additions nudge 1GWh

• New ability notes a boost of 252% over the first quarter of last year, says Wood Mackenzie

The US brought on-line 910 megawatt hours (MWh) of brand-new energy storage capability in the initial quarter of 2021, according to information from Wood Mackenzie and also the Energy Storage Association (ESA).

The new additions note an increase of 252% over the first quarter of last year.

After a record-setting quarter for deployments in the 4th quarter of 2020, the rate of storage implementations slowed in the first quarter 2021, Wood Mackenzie highlighted.

The expert said that despite this "somewhat of a yearly phenomenon for the market", the United States storage market still scratched its 3rd highest MWh overall for one quarter.

Expecting the remainder of 2021, deployments are anticipated to "increase dramatically".

Wood Mackenzie anticipates that nearly 12,000 MWh of brand-new storage will certainly be added in 2021, which is three times the quantity of brand-new storage included 2020.

Among one of the most significant storage market developments in the first quarter was the intro of a stand-alone storage investment tax obligation credit report (ITC) in Congress, specified Wood Mackenzie.

If passed this year, a stand-alone storage ITC would certainly lead to a 20-25% upgrade to Wood Mackenzie's five-year market expectation in megawatt terms.

Chloe Holden, Wood Mackenzie energy storage analyst, said: "An additional 20 to 25% growth for the United States market over the next five years would turbo charge a currently fast-growing energy storage market.

" The front-of-the-meter (FTM) sector would see the largest step-by-step development, with an added 6GW of capacity expected via 2025, which is 25% of our base situation market projection.

Without the stand-alone storage ITC, we anticipate that the FTM segment will certainly add 3674MW in 2021 and also 6915MW in 2026."

The record likewise highlighted that the FTM interconnection line currently sits at over 200GW.

Though a lot of projects in the line will not come online, the line is the largest it has actually ever been as well as is a "testimony to the quick development" of the US FTM storage market.

There is a clear pattern of raised geographic variety of passion in FTM projects, with a rise of affiliation queue requests sitting beyond incentivised markets, Wood Mackenzie stated.