Australian Energy Storage Market Analysis 2018

Up to 35,000 Australians could be working in the nation’s energy storage industry by 2020 and up to 450,000 small scale storage systems installed across the country states a new report from the Smart Energy Council.

The Council’s Australian Energy Storage Market Analysis 2018 report released late last week looks at current and future trends of uptake of solar batteries and other forms of energy storage in Australia.

The report states an estimated 52,500 on-grid and off-grid energy storage systems were installed in Australia up to the end of last year. However, it points out tracking data on distributed small-scale energy storage installations in Australia is problematic, hence the need for a national battery database.

Looking ahead, the report outlines three scenarios out to 2020:

• High growth: ~ 450,000 small scale distributed energy storage systems installed in Australia by 2020, representing 3 GWh of storage.
• Medium growth: – ~ 300,000 systems representing 2 GWh of storage.
• Low growth – ~ 150,000 systems representing 1 GWh of storage.

Source: Australian Energy Storage Market Analysis 2018 – Smart Energy Council

A range of factors will influence how many systems are installed, including:

• Electricity prices
• Solar battery prices and energy storage costs generally.
• Federal, State and Territory government policies and incentives
• Industry standards
• Availability of trained installers
• Public perceptions of safety and quality

On the incentives front for batteries, the South Australian government recently announced further details of its Home Battery Scheme, which aims to support 40,000 South Australian households in installing energy storage. Last week, the Victorian government also committed to providing rebates on solar batteries for 10,000 households – if re-elected in November.

Energy Storage Jobs

A survey by the Smart Energy Council found more than 2,000 Australians are directly employed in the energy storage sector. Under the low-growth scenario in the report, 20,000 Australians could be working directly or indirectly in energy storage in 2020, rising to up to 35,000 in the high growth scenario.

Large Scale Storage

The report also identifies 55  proposed large-scale energy storage projects (excluding pumped hydro, but including Virtual Power Plants) in Australia, representing more than 4 GWh of storage. It points out that of the 120 large-scale solar projects that have been completed, planned or are in the pipeline, many have the capacity to add storage.

The Smart Energy Council Australian Energy Storage Market Analysis 2018 report can be viewed in full here (PDF). It also includes a series of  recommendations for building a strong, sustainable and safe Australian energy storage industry.