PV storage in the UK is set to take off from next year according to new analysis that forecasts a global storage market of US$19 billion by 2017.
A report by IHS predicts that other countries, particularly the UK, will follow the lead now being shown by Germany in driving uptake of PV storage technology.
From the beginning of next month Germany is introducing a tariff for PV storage, which is expected to reduce the cost of a PV system with storage to 10% less than one without.
And as solar subsidies such as feed-in tariffs begin to dwindle, IHS expects other countries such as the UK to adopt similar measures to boost the deployment of storage technology.
Overall IHS expects the lead taken by Germany will drive global installations of PV storage systems to 7GW by 2017. This will create a market worth US$19 billion compared to US$200 million last year.
IHS PV analyst Sam Wilkinson said: “We do expect that other countries will follow Germany’s example and adopt similar subsidy schemes to promote the use of PV energy storage—particularly where there is a case for promoting self-consumption and grid stability.
“Even without subsidies though, storage can be an attractive proposition in conjunction with residential PV systems in some markets, such as the UK, where the market is forecast to begin growing quickly in 2014, when the price of batteries is predicted to have fallen sufficiently to make PV storage financially viable.”
The report predicts that larger PV systems will also start to incorporate storage technology as the growing deployment of PV puts more pressure on grid systems.
Utility-scale PV systems with storage are forecast to grow to more than 2GW annually by 2017, with Asia and the Americas dominating this market.