It is still not clear how “financeable” battery storage applications are for commercial and industrial customers and obsolescence risks remain a key concern, a panel has concluded.
Baringa’s Ilesh Patel, Belectric director Duncan Bott and Alexa Capital’s James Allen discussed energy storage deployment in the UK at today’s Clean Energy Summit and concluded that C&I deployment would probably not experience significant growth until 2017 onwards.
And Bott’s best case estimate was that around 50 C&I battery installs would be made over the rest of the year, mostly falling in the “fairly low” megawatt hour capacity range.
This, Bott said, was mainly due to it remaining unclear how finance institutions will view battery applications. Allen agreed, adding: “Costs are coming down but concerns over obsolescence remain.”
Patel added that that the risk inherent with C&I battery storage applications was difficult to alleviate, and that the UK was “in the challenging box” as opposed to other markets.
