SEIA is announcing a new venture to prioritize energy storage across policy advocacy, membership, research and events.
The venture, called the Storage Advocacy Network, will be a formal branch of SEIA and serve as a national and state advocacy voice for energy storage. Storage is a multibillion-dollar piece of the cleantech sector, but companies need strong policy leadership to make sure they can maximize their growth in the solar sector and beyond.
SEIA is offering one board of directors’ seat to the Chair of its Storage Division and ten free memberships to diverse companies focused on energy storage. Through collaboration with various SEIA committees, the Storage Advocacy Network will shape the organization’s lobbying and public affairs advocacy on energy storage.
“Solar and storage are inextricably linked, and SEIA is increasingly working at the intersection of these market-moving technologies,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, SEIA’s president and CEO. “Over the next decade, we need to dramatically ramp up solar + storage installations to achieve emissions goals, and we’ll need world-class federal and state advocacy to help us get there.”
SEIA will be putting its full weight behind state and federal policies that scale competitive energy storage deployment, increase private sector investment in storage and create well-paying jobs across the entire storage value chain. The Storage Advocacy Network is a natural evolution of the ongoing work SEIA is engaged in across the country to create and expand markets for energy storage.
Storage is already an essential part of SEIA’s Solar+ Decade ambitions — for solar to achieve 20% of U.S. electricity generation by 2030 — and will be critical to President Biden’s goal of achieving net-zero power sector emissions by 2035. As renewable energy capacity increases, ramping up energy storage on the U.S. grid will be critical, regardless of what resource it’s paired with.
The U.S. energy storage market is on track to grow five times its size by 2025 from 1.5 GW in 2020 to 7.8 GW in 2025, according to analysis from Wood Mackenzie. The U.S. energy storage market surpassed $1.5 billion in 2020 and on its current trajectory, it will be a $7.6 billion annual market in 2025. But to reach 100 GW of energy storage by 2030, annual storage deployment needs to more than double between 2025 and 2030.
“There is a massive gap between our energy storage goals and where we are now, and business as usual is not a recipe for success,” Hopper said. “SEIA is the voice of open market competition in the electricity sector, and we have a unique role in ensuring energy storage is deployed rapidly at low cost for America’s energy future.”
Just last week, SEIA, along with the Colorado Solar and Storage Association negotiated favorable interconnection standards in the Rocky Mountain State. SEIA also will continue its engagement in the codes and standards process to ensure storage is properly incorporated into the rules that govern installation and interconnection of storage resources.
SEIA’s research and events have increasingly focused on energy storage over the years, and the organization’s signature research reports, like Solar Means Business, will feature new analysis on energy storage adoption and market trends. SEIA’s events already feature a considerable focus on energy storage. The industry’s flagship event, North America Smart Energy Week, includes the largest energy storage conference in North America, Energy Storage International.
In the near future, SEIA will announce how the organization will further incorporate storage into its flagship research products, educational programming and policy advocacy.
News item from SEIA
Solarman says
“Storage is already an essential part of SEIA’s Solar+ Decade ambitions — for solar to achieve 20% of U.S. electricity generation by 2030 — and will be critical to President Biden’s goal of achieving net-zero power sector emissions by 2035. As renewable energy capacity increases, ramping up energy storage on the U.S. grid will be critical, regardless of what resource it’s paired with.”
There are many narratives and many points of view that have been ‘mashed’ together to create some kind of ‘picture’ of how technologies have to be rolled out. Example: (IF) Arizona counts the 35% emissions free energy generated by the Palo Verde Nuclear Plant, then adds the State wide utility and residential solar PV of about 20% and another 8% hydrogeneration, Arizona is at 63% emission free energy right now. Of the three large electricity utilities in Arizona, APS, SRP and TEV are planning on getting rid of the four corners coal fired plant (by) 2031 and with ten year plans in place to put in more solar PV and energy storage and even add energy storage to online solar PV farms to extend their solar powered generation day into the evening hours. What has happened so far is the old Navajo Generating Station was shut down early (in 2019) instead of the predicted 2030. This will probably happen to the four corners coal fired plant before 2031 also. It’s just getting to costly to keep coal fired online, it is less profitable than solar PV and energy storage right now. I looked up local simple solar PV grid tied installation costs in the area and found the average is $2.68/watt installed. If one goes with a larger solar PV array of say 10kWp about 620 feet of roof space and a smart ESS you would be in the $6.50/watt installed range for large systems and less for smaller energy storage systems. The amount of programmability and energy control these new ESS units have available will pay for itself sooner than later.