Dive Brief:

• NantEnergy announced yesterday that it has acquired the energy systems and services business of Sharp Electronics, helping to position the company as a battery leader as the global market for storage heats up.
• Sharp has an active project pipeline that tops 60 MW of commercial and industrial solar-plus-storage installations in the United States, the companies said. Sharp's behind-the-meter energy storage system, dubbed SmartStorage, was included in the acquisition and is designed to reduce peak demand usage for commercial and industrial buildings.
• The deal will expand NantEnergy's market reach across more than a dozen countries, the companies said. Recent analysis from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) concludes the global storage market is expanding rapidly, and could attract $620 billion in investment by 2040.

Dive Insight:

The anticipated, rapid growth of energy storage worldwide has companies jockeying for global position as prices fall and analysts say far more batteries are being deployed than projected a couple of years ago. NantEnergy's acquisition of Sharp allows it an entry into the United States market, with particular emphasis on the the West Coast where batteries may be a key to integrating more renewables.

The deal "immediately creates a foothold for NantEnergy in the U.S., particularly in the important California market," according to NantEnergy Chairman Patrick Soon-Shiong.

NantEnergy says it will continue to promote the SmartStorage system, along with optional 10-year asset management agreements, under which the company provides "routine and unscheduled maintenance, coupled with a 10-year demand reduction performance guarantee."

Sharp's existing SmartStorage service agreements will continue to be covered by NantEnergy.

As battery prices have declined, interest in storage has skyrocketed. In the next 22 years, BNEF now says it expects storage will represent 7% of the total installed power capacity globally. And while most storage capacity is now utility-scale, by the mid-2030s, the firm believes behind-the-meter storage will dominate deployments.

Just two years ago, BNEF forecast the energy storage market could be valued at $250 billion or more by 2040, with 25 GW of the devices deployed by 2028. Last year, the firm predicted storage capacity rising to a total of 125 GW / 305 GWh by 2030.

Now, BNEF believes the global energy storage market, which excludes pumped hydro, will grow to a cumulative 942 GW / 2,857 GWh by 2040.