Germany’s Home Battery Sales Charging Up

The pandemic, supply chain issues and increasing production and raw material costs didn’t put a dampener on Germany’s home battery storage market last year – and this year is also shaping up to be a corker.

Germany’s Energy Storage Association (BVES) has released industry figures for 2021 and a forecast for 2022, indicating 4 billion euros in sales last year for the household market segment – that’s around AUD $5.83 billion at current exchange rates.

An estimated 430,000 home energy storage systems had been installed in Germany by the end of 2021, up 50% on the total number of systems at the end of 2020. BVES says the expectation is the 500,000 mark (~4,400 MWh capacity) will be crossed this month, and the total could hit 730,000 systems by year’s end; up 67% on 2021.

“The 500,000 home storage systems are not only a great result for the industry, but also a clear signal that energy storage systems are and must be an essential part of the new energy system based on renewable energy,” said (translated) BVES Managing Director Urban Windelen.

Home storage systems are also getting bigger, up from an average 6.8kWh capacity in 2017 to 8.8kWh last year.

The report presented by BVES, prepared by 3Energie Consulting, indicates resilience, self-sufficiency, security of supply and high energy prices were drivers of growth last year, and the latter two are expected to provide further impetus this year given current world events.

However, an electricity sector revamp announced by the German government yesterday is promising to pay better feed-in tariffs and depending on how generous those are and when they kick in, it could affect storage uptake to some degree.

An earlier report estimates 1,357 MWh of new storage capacity was installed in Germany in 2021 and home energy storage systems accounted for 93% of that total. It notes the average price for a medium-sized HSS (Home Storage System) in Germany was about 1,000 EUR/kWh in 2021 (~ AUD $1,460), a decrease of 8% from 2020 – but still very pricey.

The German market remains dominated by local manufacturers Senec, Shell-owned sonnen and E3/DC.

Home Battery Uptake – Germany Vs. Australia

So, how does Germany’s home battery experience compare to Australia’s?

According to solar industry analyst SunWiz, around 30,246 solar battery installations occurred in Australia last year, when the cumulative total of home batteries across the country reached approximately 140,000 and an estimated collective capacity of 2,657 MWh. Unlike Germany, last year’s installations in Australia were slightly down on 2020.

While Germany’s population is more than three times that of Australia, there are around 2.2 million solar power systems installed in that country compared to Australia’s tally of 3 million plus. It seems German solar owners are more willing to part with a bunch of bucks – or euros – for home battery storage.

But there’s certainly plenty of interest in solar batteries here at home. The April 2022 SolarQuotes auSSII report shows approximately 18% of Australians using the SQ service in March were interested in having a home battery installed at the same time their solar panels – and that has been a consistent figure for 4 months. What isn’t helping interest translate to purchases is the cost of battery systems vs. payback. And on a related note, Tesla recently boosted the price of Powerwall in Australia by nearly a thousand dollars.

Original Source: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/germany-home-batteries-mb2426/