German energy storage market grows 10 percent to 5.5 billion euros

Germany's energy storage sector recorded sales growth of 10 percent to 5.5 billion euros in 2019 and expects a "continuation of the positive market development", according to industry association BVES. Industrial applications recorded a particularly strong increase to 1.3 billion euros "to become the energy storage industry's most important market segment." Companies used storage to secure an uninterrupted power supply as an emergency back-up for the management of peak demand or to decarbonise, the lobby group said. "Additionally, a rising demand for thermal energy storage was partly driven by the upcoming introduction of a CO2 price”, the association said.

The BVES said the storage company also recorded rising demand for home storage systems, boosted by the shift to e-mobility. According to a report by pv magazine, 182,000 home storage units were installed in Germany at the end of the year, the vast majority of which in combination with a solar PV array, and the industry expects the installation of an additional 65.000 units this year.

Germany's rapidly rising share of weather-dependent renewable energy makes the country a testbed for storage technologies, to enable its use when there is only little or no sun or wind power available. Truly large-scale storage might not be essential for decades to come, but the technology has started to spread small-scale in the form of batteries in cars, homes and companies.