The Cumulative Installed Energy Storage Capacity in The United States Is Close To 15GW
As of Q3 2023, the cumulative installed energy storage capacity in the United States has reached 14.689 GW. It is worth noting that thanks to the active contribution of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the proportion of newly installed capacity in this quarter is as high as 40 %. According to data from S&P Global Commodity Insights, the newly installed capacity in the United States in the past three months reached 1.909GW, an increase of 16% month-on-month and a year-on-year increase of 53.3%.
Although U.S. energy storage installations continue to grow, new installations in the third quarter were only half of expectations, mainly due to restrictions on the grid connection of some large energy storage projects. Among them, Terra-Gen’s Edwards 169MW project, Sanborn project, and CIM Group’s 228MW Westlands Solar Blue project have all encountered delays.
New installations in the third quarter fell short of expectations as the commercial launch dates of the Sanborn and Westlands Solar Blue projects were postponed to the fourth quarter. If these two projects are not delayed, it is expected that the newly installed energy storage capacity in the United States will reach 4.5GW in the third quarter, and by the end of 2023, the cumulative installed energy storage capacity in the United States will exceed 19GW.
S&P pointed out that ERCOT occupied the leadership position in U.S. energy storage deployment in the first quarter of 2023, but no new grid-scale energy storage systems (BESS) were put into operation in the second quarter. By the third quarter, ERCOT once again established its first position in energy storage deployment in the United States, with its BESS deployment capacity reaching 763.4MW, accounting for 40% of the total new capacity. It is worth noting that the third quarter data released by S&P is more conservative than the data released by the American Clean Power Association (ACP) at the beginning of the month because ACP claimed that 2,142MW/6,227MWh of new large-scale energy storage projects came into operation in the quarter.
However, according to S&P's forecast, the leading region in the United States for new installed capacity in the fourth quarter should be California, with the state's Electric Power Dispatch Center (CAISO) planning to increase its share by 42.2%. Next are the western states of the United States (and some areas of Canada and Mexico), forming the Western Electric Power Coordinating Council (WECC), which holds 27.9%. ERCOT is expected to contribute 24.5% of new installed capacity in the fourth quarter, ranking third.
