The market for BESS in the United Kingdom began in 2015 and currently according to the European Market Outlook For Residential Battery Storage 2021-2025 by Solar Power Europe it ranks third in Europe in terms of number of installations in 2020
About 8% of the market and 81 MWh installed, not far from Italy which holds 9% of continental installations in second place.
Expected to be 93MWh installed in 2021
For 2021, the forecasts of this sector association project 93 MWh with an increase of 14% year of year.
The residential storage market in the UK began to develop from 2015, without any support from the government, especially on new installations of PV systems thanks to the decrease in battery costs and the simultaneous decrease of the feed-in tariff.
Net-Metering at variable rates
Another very important factor is that in England Net-Metering at variable rates has already been developed, which has led to the use of storage systems in Time of Use mode.
This trend has continued over the years and has meant that 40% of new installations were already equipped with batteries.
Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) tariff liberalization
Other facts that have led the UK to be the third largest residential BESS market in our continent has been the constant increase in the last 10 years of electricity tariffs, which were historically lower than those of Europe and the different regulation of the charges of system and transmission which led operators to offer the British variable rates depending on the time of use.
The so-called Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) has also been active since 1 January 2020, which has further liberalized tariffs and now the operators and owners of renewable energy systems with storage have the possibility of structuring very flexible tariffs both for the purchase and for the export of energy.
All this is possible thanks to the introduction of smart meters that UK operators are installing in the homes of British families, unfortunately the forecasts of Ofgem (the energy regulator) expected to reach 80% of citizens by 2020, but the target has been moved to 85% by 2024.
Growth forecasts of 12% over the next 5 years with approximately 865MWh
According to the studies of Solar Power Europe, the inhabitants of the United Kingdom, even in the absence of specific incentives, will continue to increase their installations of residential batteries storage systems reaching a cumulative of 365 MWh at the end of 2021 and 865 MWh at the end of 2025 with an average growth of 12% considering the five-year period 2021-2025.
A further increase could take place thanks to the imposition, that Wales and England have already introduced, in inserting PV systems in new buildings, as is the case in other European countries, but here, thanks to the above, there may be a better “hook” rate of storage to systems compared to other states.
Unfortunately, at the moment Solar Power Europe has not been able to predict the effects of Brexit, so the difference between the low and high scenario is high.
