How can Europe find its’ place within the solar-plus-storage-market?
Will Europe succeed in developing Solar-Plus-Storage Market?
It definitely will, and much will depend on subsidy-free solar projects.
As the global front-of-the-meter (FTM) solar-plus-storage market in 2018 showed fabulous results, 2019 promises to be hugely more successful.
Although many prosperous countries like the USA, South Korea and Australia already deployed more than 540 megawatts of FTM solar-plus-storage last year, Europe is still trailing far behind – just 6 megawatts had been deployed in entire Europe in 2018.
Why is European FTM solar-plus-storage market so weak? Will the next few years bring any progress? Let’s learn it in details.
One of the main factors influencing the development of the FTM solar-plus-storage market in Europe is the role of its government. Politicians don’t much forward any auctions to enhance the solar market in Europe. Europe leans toward wind or solar development as directed by carbon targets of the European Union. Dispatchable solar generation is out of favour. Although some European solar developers use solar storages in order to get their present value incomes.
Australia got much ahead in FTM solar-plus-storage development due to the policy of grants aiming to boost large solar-plus-storage projects. The USA was incentivizing utility power-purchase contracts with new regulations enabling solar-plus-storage to be economically competitive with gas enterprises.
In 2018 solar-plus-storage market in South Korea had been much supported by governmental auctions, e.g., by battery subsidies. As a result, the growth of solar installations in South Korea within 218 was extremely high. However, there are some prognoses that activity on the oversaturated solar market in South Korea will fall down a bit next year. Chinese policy is very focused on solar-plus-storage development, therefore, we expect more solar installations in China in 2019.
Although the benefits of FTM solar-plus-storage market are pretty obvious, countries don’t hurry to show a preference for solar development. Although South Korea went ahead in developing of solar-plus-storage, its government still relies much on LNG (liquid natural gas). Australia is also a constant adherent of LNG.
That’s why it is no wonder that Europe is trailing behind.
Nevertheless, Europe takes sure steps on the road towards the growth of the solar-plus-storage market – by implementing the project TERRE that will give chances for small developers to deal with more solar projects, and in future, of course, to reach more results having fulfilled projects of higher value.
The senior storage analyst in Edinburgh, Rory McCarthy, making a speech at the research presentation, said:
We expect deployments to pick up in Europe, not only for the smaller developers but the large utilities as well, as more and more solar projects are commissioned subsidy-free, with nor only power-purchase agreements but also fully merchant revenues part of the revenue stack.
Rory McCarthy also claims that as commercial renewables expand after a time solar-plus-storage will much on-demand in Europe:
Pairing storage with solar plants derisks power volumes by enabling dispatchable power and access to additional revenues. Pairing the technologies on-site, as opposed to through a virtual power plant, provides further economic benefits through sharing on-site infrastructure.
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