Leaders in the fledgling commercial and industrial (C&I) sector in the US have made energy storage ‘as-a-service’ the core of their proposition, a market analyst has said.

Median bids received by US utility Xcel Energy in a solicitation for energy resources for energy storage paired with solar came in at US$9 per megawatt lower than the previously observed record.

Adding energy storage gives solar developers and the industry in general the ability to “keep going”, while offering both lithium and flow battery systems covers a “wide-range of use cases”, NEXTracker CEO Dan Shugar has said.

Trade associations NY BEST and the Energy Storage Association have been quick to applaud New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s historic setting of a 1,500MW energy storage procurement target for his state.

Legislation proposed in Florida could see solar and energy storage become part of the go-to solution for providing energy resiliency against natural disasters and helping restore power in their aftermath.

“A comprehensive agenda to combat climate change” unveiled on Tuesday by New York governor Andrew Cuomo, includes the setting of a state-wide energy storage deployment target of 1,500MW by 2025.

US commercial and industrial (C&I) sector player Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS) has been selected by a water authority in California to deliver a 3MWh energy storage system at a facility processing polluted groundwater.

The CEO of Primus Power agrees that at present, lithium battery systems are more bankable than the flow battery energy storage systems of the type his company makes, but asserted that he believes this will change over time.

ESS Inc, among several companies looking to commercialise a flow battery energy storage technology, has netted US$13 million in a Series B funding round from investors that include global chemical company BASF.