The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) says it is launching a new venture to prioritize energy storage across policy advocacy, membership, research and events.
The venture, called the Storage Advocacy Network, will be a formal branch of SEIA and serve as a national and state advocacy voice for energy storage. Storage is a multibillion-dollar piece of the cleantech sector but companies need strong policy leadership to make sure they can maximize their growth in the solar sector and beyond.
SEIA is offering one board of directors’ seat to the chair of its storage division and 10 free memberships to diverse companies focused on energy storage. Through collaboration with various SEIA committees, the Storage Advocacy Network will shape the organization’s lobbying and public affairs advocacy on energy storage.
“Solar and storage are inextricably linked, and SEIA is increasingly working at the intersection of these market-moving technologies,” says Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of SEIA. “Over the next decade, we need to dramatically ramp up solar+storage installations to achieve emissions goals, and we’ll need world-class federal and state advocacy to help us get there.”
SEIA will be putting its full weight behind state and federal policies that scale competitive energy storage deployment, increase private sector investment in storage and create well-paying jobs across the entire storage value chain. The Storage Advocacy Network is a natural evolution of the ongoing work SEIA is engaged in across the country to create and expand markets for energy storage.
Storage is already an essential part of SEIA’s Solar+ Decade ambitions – for solar to achieve 20% of U.S. electricity generation by 2030 – and will be critical to President Joe Biden’s goal of achieving net-zero power sector emissions by 2035. As renewable energy capacity increases, ramping up energy storage on the U.S. grid will be critical, regardless of what resource it’s paired with.
The U.S. energy storage market is on track to grow five times its size by 2025 from 1.5 GW in 2020 to 7.8 GW in 2025, according to analysis from Wood Mackenzie. The U.S. energy storage market surpassed $1.5 billion in 2020. On its current trajectory, it will be a $7.6 billion annual market in 2025. But to reach 100 GW of energy storage by 2030, annual storage deployment needs to more than double between 2025 and 2030.
In the near future, SEIA will announce how the organization will further incorporate storage into its flagship research products, educational programming and policy advocacy.
Photo: Abigail Ross Hopper
