The EU’s energy storage build-out is expect to rebound this year after stalling in 2019, when deployment grew by only 1GWh, according to new research from the European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE) and consultancy Delta-EE .
The European Market Monitor on Energy Storage (EMMES) report found that installations of energy storage systems saw a slow-down of -14% last year from 1.16GWh in 2018, but are forecast to swell to 1.26GWh in 2020, an increase of 30% year-on-year.
“The European market [growth] in 2019, [was] a significant slow-down compared to 2018. Front-of-meter installations slowed dramatically in 2019, while residential behind-the-meter capacity was the fastest growing market segment,” said the EMMES report authors.
The report highlights that 2018 had seen “a particularly rapid increase in front-of-the-meter projects, partly driven by enhanced frequency response tenders, bringing significant levels of storage to market, [which] resulted in higher competition, lower prices and revenue streams partly explaining the slowdown in rate of growth in 2019”.
“The message is clear: even if energy storage is a key enabler of the energy transition and clearly seen as a major tool to achieve the emissions targets linked to the Paris agreement, more support is needed,” said EASE secretary general Patrick Clerens.
“Customers, governments and the energy industry are keen to see the market develop and provide more value to the energy system. The CEP [Clean Energy for All Europeans Package] is an important step in this process by creating, among other things, a clear definition for storage, which should allow energy storage to reach its full potential fast.”
The CEP is expected to create a more robust regulatory framework for energy storage across Europe at a time when both residential and C&I (commercial and industrial) segments “show rising interest in storage as technologies costs fall and feed-in-tariffs are phased out”, said the report authors,
Delta-EEE analyst Robin Adey-Johnson stated: “Storage remains a young market and the regulatory landscape is trying to catch up. So, year-on-year fluctuations in market growth are not unexpected.
“But we see strong underlying drivers and we expect further market expansion in the early 2020s as regulation stabilises and revenue streams mature.”
