Solar and storage clean technologies of choice for North America utilities - BNEF

Solar and storage are emerging as the favoured technologies among utilities in the US and Canada as they expand their clean energy portfolios, according to a report issued by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).Solar energy and storage solutions dominated clean energy 'requests for proposals' by North American utilities according to BNEF analysis, which found that of 52 clean energy RFPs it tracked in 2014 more than half - 27 - were for solar energy while a further 12 were for energy smart technologies, with energy storage being of particular interest.The 52 RFPs totalled a capacity of 3.3GW of which solar was responsible for 1.8GW, representative of 55%.Western states sought the most RFPs, however states in the southeast of the region showed the biggest appetite for solar projects with all but 25MW of a total 925MW of RFPs falling under solar’s remit.

Will Nelson, head of analysis for BNEF in North America, said the data revealed a "strong interest"; in energy storage."Interestingly, most storage RFPs are looking for a relatively small amount of capacity, evidence that these may be initial experimental forays into a rapidly changing sector,"; he added.The report backs up forecasts made by GTM Research and the Energy Storage Association last week, estimating the US energy storage market to more than triple next year.

Although the majority of new energy storage in 2014 was in front of the meter, GTM expects behind-the-meter storage to account for 45% of the overall market by 2019, indicating a growing appetite from US utilities to invest in the technology.Speaking to PV Tech, Chris Edgette, senior director of the California Energy Storage Alliance, said that utilities had been surprised by the costs associated with storage."Now we’re seeing that utilities outside of California are taking a serious look at [storage] and finding out that it’s cost-effective in their area as well."I think we’re going to see a lot more utilities in other parts of the country getting a lot more procurement,"; he said.Additional reporting from Andy Colthorpe.