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US home batteries surge in Q1'18, according to report

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US home batteries surge in Q1'18, according to report

Adoption of behind-the-meter batteries at U.S. homes and businesses surged even as results for the overall market for energy storage slowed in the first quarter of 2018, a new report from GTM Research and the Energy Storage Association found.

Led by installations in California, residential and commercial battery deployments roughly quadrupled from a year ago as residential customers added 15.9 MW worth of batteries, nearly equaling the 16 MW of grid-scale storage deployments, while commercial projects pitched in 11.7 MW.

"Changing net-metering rules and increasing customer interest in backup and solar self-consumption drove the residential energy storage market's record quarter," Brett Simon, senior analyst at GTM Research, said in a June 6 news release. Home solar suppliers Sunrun Inc., SunPower Corp., Tesla Inc. and Vivint Solar Inc. have all reported rising demand for rooftop solar installations coupled with battery storage systems. Thanks to state incentives in California, around 20% of Sunrun's customers in the Golden State are adding batteries, and up to 50% in parts of Southern California, CEO Lynn Jurich said in May.

Total U.S. energy storage additions, however, slumped compared to both the first quarter and fourth quarter of 2017 as completions of grid-scale projects slowed. The storage market added 43.6 MW of rated power in the first quarter of 2018, down from 71 MW in the first three months of 2017 and 62.1 MW in last year's fourth quarter. Thanks to longer-duration batteries, however, the capacity of those deployments increased to 126.3 MWh in the first quarter of 2018, 26% higher than Q4 of 2017. The U.S. added 233.7 MWh of storage capacity in the first quarter of 2017.

For the year, GTM Research expects 557 MW in total storage additions in 2018, following 215 MW in 2017. And growth is expected to continue: "The market will approach the 1 GW threshold in 2019, decisively crossing it in 2020," the report said. By 2023, annual deployments will reach 3,688 MW, the firm estimated, higher than its prior projection of 3,327 MW by that time. A large share of those projects could be solar-plus-storage installations. Identified developers have proposed integrating 3,228 MW of solar projects with 2,888 MW of storage, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data.