Describing it as emulating solar’s growth, IHS Markit expects global grid-tied storage market to more than double this year. Lithium ion technology is set to become “the mainstream energy storage technology,” IHS concludes, capturing more than 80% market share in the grid-tied segment.

“Energy storage is set to grow as fast as solar photovoltaic energy has in recent years, sparking strong interest from a wide range of players and underscored by recent mergers and acquisitions among car manufacturers, major oil and gas companies, and conventional power suppliers,” said Marianne Boust, principal analyst, IHS Markit, in a statement.

In a notable acquisition, French oil giant Total completed its purchase of battery supplier Saft for US$1.1 billion on July 19.

Looking to markets, IHS expects Japan and the U.S. to lead the way, with market segment revenues totaling more than $50 billion by 2026. Additionally, the analysts point to promising “activity” on the grid-tied storage front in South Africa, Kenya, and the Phillippines.

Optimizing self-consumption from PV arrays and potentially other distributed generation sources, and serving backup power needs will drive strong behind-the-meter storage growth. IHS confirms that Japan, China, and the U.S. all currently have more than 1 GWh of behind-the-meter storage capacity installed, with that set to grow.

“Looking to the future, half of all energy storage will come from households and businesses seeking to control their energy consumption, which will massively disrupt the traditional business models from established utilities and large equipment manufacturers,” Boust said.

In Australia and Japan, grid-tied storage is set to reach more than 5% of all installed generating capacity in 2025.

IHS Markit published its findings today in its Grid-Connected Energy Storage Forecast Database.