TRV Systems Believes Battery Storage with Solar PV is The Next Logical Step

Australia, October 17, 2014 (Newswire.com) - The market today for battery storage appears very much like the state of the PV solar industry in the mid-2000s, right before the industry really began to take off. With battery storage amplifying and accelerating the benefits of solar power generated electricity, we may well see yet another round of rapid growth for the industry. 

Installed solar photovoltaics (PV) in the United States has grown by 418 percent between 2010 and 2014, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s April 2014 Electricity Monthly Update. In 2010, U.S. solar installations were just 2,326 megawatts (MW), however by February 2014, 12,057 MW of solar electricity had been installed, a gain of 9,731 MW in generating capacity.

Although solar’s total generating capacity for the U.S. remains small at an estimated 1.13 percent, all signs point to continued growth. Pricing for solar equipment has continued to decrease, solar installers have become more efficient, and more and more consumers in the residential and commercial segments see the proven value of solar’s benefits and cost efficiencies. 

With solar installations continuing to grow in the residential, commercial and utility segments, one of the biggest criticisms of solar technology — that it is an intermittent source of power and does not generate electricity once the sun has set — is now coming up against the benefits and values of combining battery storage with solar PV systems. Combining banks of batteries with solar systems has primarily been an application occurring in the off grid market for those buyers living in more remote areas who have not had access to centralized electricity grid service.

The market for combining battery storage with solar has historically remained small due to, among other things, a lack of integration of varying parts of solar with storage systems. Another reason for the market’s small size is the belief that electricity pricing from electric utilities will remain reasonable and power from the grid will remain reliable.

But current events have begun to seriously challenge the ongoing belief in reasonably priced and reliability delivered electricity from the grid. Recent high-profile severe weather storms such as Super Storm Sandy, increasing demand charges for commercial meter accounts, and the upcoming retirement of a number of U.S. coal plants to comply with clean air requirements now have electric utilities in high-population urban centers dealing with increasing costs and growing concerns about power reliability.