The success of one technology often feeds another. For example, renewable power and energy storage have each other to thank, in many respects, for their combined rising popularity. Storage helps meet the needs of renewables, and their growth, in turn, increases the demand for more storage.


According to a recent report, this relationship is lighting a fire in the energy-storage market. “U.S. Energy Storage Monitor 2015 Year in Review,” published jointly by GTM Research and the Energy Storage Association, finds that the U.S. energy-storage market had its best quarter and best year at the end of 2015. It deployed 112 megawatts (MW) of energy-storage capacity in the fourth quarter, according to the report, bringing the 2015 total to 221 MW. This represents 161 megawatt-hours (MWh) for the year. 


The fourth-quarter deployment also represented more than the total of all storage deployments in 2013 and 2014 combined. For the year, the U.S. energy-storage market grew 243 percent over 2014’s 65 MW and 86 MWh.


The report breaks down the market into three segments: residential, nonresidential and utility. The utility segment (also called front-of-meter) leads the market, accounting for 85 percent of deployments for the year, as more utilities consider storage to meet their reliability, capacity and system-upgrade needs.


The residential and nonresidential segments make up the behind-the-meter market, which grew 405 percent in 2015. Hawaii led the residential market and California led the nonresidential segment.


“We can look back at 2015 as the year when energy storage really took off,” said Ravi Manghani, senior energy storage analyst at GTM Research and author of the report.


The Energy Storage Association (ESA) is equally upbeat about this trend.


“Energy storage is changing the paradigm on how we generate, distribute and use energy,” said Matt Roberts, ESA executive director.


The authors expect this growth to continue. GTM Research forecasts that the annual U.S. energy-storage market will cross the 1-gigawatt mark in 2019, and it will be a 1.7-gigawatt market, valued at $2.5 billion by 2020.