Europe has become the world's largest residential energy storage market

Europe is already the world's largest residential energy storage market, and its overall growth will outpace current regional leader Germany over the next five years, according to a new Energy Information report. In the 2020s, residential photovoltaic plus energy storage systems will be the largest use in Europe, and their economic tipping point and large-scale application are also accelerating. Italy is expected to achieve grid parity in 2021, followed by Germany in 2022.

1. It will reach 6.6 gigawatt-hours in 2024

Wood Mackenzie expects the deployment of residential energy storage systems in Europe to increase fivefold to 6.6 gigawatt hours by 2024, more than doubling the number of new installations each year. Germany, as the global leader in the residential energy storage market, is leading the rapid growth of Europe in this field. With the intensive implementation of related projects in other European countries, the overall growth of the region in the next five years is encouraging.

It is worth mentioning that Spain is a very potential market, although the country has not set specific residential energy storage policy and have been "tax" the sun is bad for the influence of photovoltaic development policy, but the new government for the reconstruction of the residential pv market and the power of self given backed, this will be the country's residential photovoltaic (pv) and pave the way for the development of the energy storage system.

2. Italy and Germany take the lead in realizing "grid parity"

Wood Mackenzie found that energy storage is nearing an economic tipping point in Europe, with Germany, Italy and Spain accelerating towards "grid parity", where the cost per kilowatt-hour of electricity from residential PV plus storage systems will be comparable to the cost per kilowatt-hour of electricity from grid purchases.

Italy and Germany are set to achieve positive net present value and IRR in 2021 and 2022 respectively, meaning that households in these countries will be among the first in Europe to take advantage of affordable rooftop PV systems plus energy storage costs. Although Italy and Germany are "friendlier and more open" to energy storage than the rest of Europe, the trend will gradually spread across the continent.

In addition, the economic tipping point for energy storage is far away in the UK and France. Both countries are affected by high costs per KWH, nascent energy storage systems, and imperfect policy mechanisms. While energy storage deployment will continue to be promoted, grid parity will not be achieved by 2024.

3. Photovoltaic plus energy storage costs to be reduced

The industry believes that cost is still the main driver of new growth in energy storage. With the advent of the era of electrification, infrastructure upgrades and high capital expenditure power systems will drive up electricity prices and maximize the cost of energy storage systems, which will give greater impetus to the integration of renewable energy and energy storage.

At present, the expensive residential pv and energy storage system, which makes most European residents for energy storage device is added in the photovoltaic system wait, only intensify innovation and encourage diversified business model, to help users amortization upfront costs, to make residential pv and energy storage "affordable" way of household electricity.

4. Green energy drives the growth of energy storage

Tom Heggarty, senior solar analyst at Wood Mackenzie, notes that distributed solar power for self-consumption remains an important part of the European renewable energy market, accounting for almost 40 per cent of total installations between 2019 and 2024. "This means that pairing solar with battery storage will become more common in the coming years."

Wood Mackenzie expects new solar installations in Europe to double over the next three years to about 20 gigawatts a year, taking the region's total capacity to more than 250 gigawatts by 2024.

Energy storage industry analyst BNEF also said: "The era of dispatchable renewable energy is slowly approaching, and renewable energy plus storage, especially solar plus storage, will become the mainstream of this era."