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US battery storage soared in 2021, including these three monster projects
(Inside Climate News, 31 Mar 2022) Storage industry continues rapid growth despite rising costs. California leads the way.
Battery storage is quickly moving from the margins to near the center of the U.S. energy system.
In 2021, the market added 3,508 megawatts of battery storage capacity, an amount more than double from the prior year, according to a report issued last week by the research firm Wood Mackenzie and the American Clean Power Association, a trade group. The total includes grid-scale storage and smaller storage systems at homes and businesses.
“We are seeing that storage has evolved to be an essential part of the energy transition and something that utilities are leaning on in their resource planning,” said Chloe Holden, a Wood Mackenzie analyst and co-author of the report, in an interview.
Storage is essential because it allows grid operators to store wind and solar power at times when those resources are plentiful, and then discharge when needed.
The rapid growth in battery storage has gone on for years, rising from 257 megawatts in 2016, which seemed huge at the time, to last year’s total—an increase of more than 1,200 percent.
Inside Climate News, 31 Mar 2022: US battery storage soared in 2021, including these three monster projects
