Merriam Webster defines tipping point as “the critical point…beyond which a significant and often unstoppable effect or change takes places.”

While by definition it is impossible to identify a tipping point as it is happening, developments over the past several weeks certainly seem to be pushing the electric power storage industry to or past that landmark. In a couple of years, the last couple of weeks may stand out as the point when storage morphed from being an interesting add-on to an essential piece of the grid, providing backup power, smoothing variable generation and participating in various other ancillary markets.

This transition is projected in the latest forecast from the Energy Storage Association and GTM Research. In their Q1 review (executive summary is available here), they project that annual storage installations in the United States will jump from just 215 megawatts in 2017 to more than 3.3 gigawatts by 2023. Just as telling, AES, which has partnered with Siemens in a storage joint venture dubbed Fluence, said in a presentation (available here) accompanying its annual results that it expected the global market to hit 28 GW of installed capacity by 2022—a tenfold increase in five years.

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