This year has already seen “significant acceleration” of activity in the global grid-connected energy storage market, with 4.3GW expected to be deployed this year, analysis firm IHS Markit has said.

In a report released to its subscribers, IHS Markit also predicted that there could be 10.6GW of grid-connected energy storage deployments annually by 2025. Julian Jansen, research and analysis manager at IHS’ Energy Storage Intelligence division said that primary drivers for the strengthening of market outlook included demand from solar co-location, growth in the Chinese market and incentives given for residential installations in various global territories.

A report out a few weeks ago from another analysis firm, Wood Mackenzie said that China and the US are the world’s fastest-growing markets, expected to account for more than half of all installations worldwide by 2024. According to IHS Markit, the US has in 2019 been the world’s leading market, overtaking South Korea which saw huge growth during 2018.

The need to replace peaking capacity on the grid - traditionally provided by combined cycle gas turbines - and the growing sturdiness of the business case for solar-plus-storage have been the primary drivers of large procurements in the US, IHS found.

Front-of-meter and behind-the-meter deployments of energy storage will eventually begin to take an even split of the global market, but today, each segment is developing at different rates in each territory energy storage has taken hold. While the US sector was dominated by front-of-meter activity in 2018, Japan and Germany have seen more going on behind-the-meter in the residential space.

That growing case for solar-plus-storage mentioned as seen in the US will be observed in more parts of the world from now until 2025. Utility-scale, front-of-meter energy storage will, therefore, take more than a 50% share of annual additions in the next six years, Jansen and his team predicted.