New technologies, including capacitor battery technology, lithium titanate oxide, nickel-iron, and solar thermal, are swelling the pipeline of advanced energy storage projects. At the same time, new variants on older technologies, such as power-to-gas, are also coming online. These developments suggest an industry that is dynamic, if still not mature. According to a new tracker report from Navigant Research, 38 new advanced energy storage projects were announced, deployed, or begun in the first 6 months of 2013.
In total, there are now 633 energy storage projects operating or under development worldwide, the study concludes.
“There are now 29 different energy storage technologies in use worldwide, some with just a small fraction of the overall market,” says Anissa Dehamna, senior research analyst with Navigant Research. “In terms of regional capacity, Asia Pacific continues to be the world leader in deployed capacity, with almost 1.2 GW representing 47 percent of global capacity, followed by North America and Western Europe. In terms of installed projects, however, North America leads with 115 deployments.”
The market for energy storage, including traditional pumped storage, is extremely fragmented, with at least 136 vendors offering various solutions. The leader, in terms of deployed capacity market share, is Alstom, with 22 percent of the market, followed by Voith (19 percent) and Allis Chalmers (8 percent). When traditional pumped storage is excluded, however, the market looks quite different: the top three vendors are NGK Insulators, Energy Storage and Power LLC, and Solar Millennium.
The report, “Energy Storage Tracker 3Q13”, provides a comprehensive resource of energy storage projects worldwide. It includes a database of 633 projects (encompassing 865 systems) currently in development and tracks the country, region, market segment, status, technology vendor, systems integrator, applications, funding, investment, and key milestones of each project. In addition, the report includes analysis of the technology choice within each major region for storage, analysis of leading regions for energy storage capacity and projects, market share analysis for technology vendors for deployed projects and projects in the pipeline, and market share analysis for systems integrators for all projects where available. An Executive Summary of the report is available for free download on the Navigant Research website.