The U.S. energy storage market is no longer in its infancy. According to GTM Research and the Energy Storage Association’s (ESA) newly released U.S. Energy Storage Monitor 2017 Year-in-Review, 100 megawatt-hours of grid-connected energy storage were deployed in the fourth quarter of the year, marking 1,080 cumulative megawatt-hours deployed between 2013 and 2017. According to GTM Research, annual deployments will exceed 1,000 MWh in 2018.

“We’re going to have to strike the word ‘nascent’ from our vocabularies when describing the U.S. energy storage market,” said Ravi Manghani, GTM Research’s director of energy storage. “Falling costs and favorable policies will be among the core drivers of the market’s breakout 2018. It’s not hard to imagine that every solar RFP by the end of the year will include storage.”

“The recent unanimous, landmark decision issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is expected to lay the groundwork for the integration of energy storage technologies into the U.S. wholesale markets in a manner that compensates storage for the full range of value it is already capable of providing to the grid and end users,” said Kelly Speakes-Backman, CEO of ESA. “Policies and regulatory frameworks that level the playing field will further encourage energy storage deployment throughout 2018 and beyond as the industry builds toward a goal of realizing 35 GW by 2025,” according to greentechmedia.com.

The U.S. energy storage market grew 27 percent in 2017, with 431 megawatt-hours deployed on the year.