Substation energy storage market broke out

Polaris Smart Grid Online: The IMS study believes that today's energy storage can benefit from the use of distributed power grids for distributed power substations, but this situation will change. IMS predicts that the energy storage revenue of distribution substations will usher in explosive growth in the next few years, breaking the annual growth rate of 50%.

In a recent report, IMS further revealed that by 2016, energy storage will account for 10% of the power distribution equipment market for the global distribution substation in the distribution substation market, with a market value of nearly US$700 million. IMS said it will become the basis for smart grids to honor various commitments.

Utilities, suppliers and other roles have all added enthusiasm to the smart grid, but smart grid investments in some areas have only just started in early 2012. While several smart grid segments, such as voltage reactive power optimization and related equipment, capture much of the attention and investment, power-storage-level energy-storage investments are mostly limited by the persistent power availability problems of large substations.

Even if energy storage is a powerful alternative to power line upgrades, building back-up power or peak-hour power production, the existing public utility market has a tight budget and slow new construction, making energy storage at some distribution levels (30KV and below). Utility companies are difficult to expand.

IMS analyst Donald Henschel thinks that this situation is about to change. From a medium-to-long-term perspective, energy storage at the substation level is a very important investment area. We expect that utilities will enjoy the new economies of scale brought by energy storage devices in the coming years, as well as new centralized and distributed new energy generation, and charging of electric vehicles will provide tremendous strain on existing infrastructure.

He also stated that in some areas, the increasing demand for electric power due to the charging of electric vehicles or the use of a large number of electric heating equipments, together with the different nature of aging feeder lines and distributed generation on transformers, these challenges have made energy storage a very attractive option. .