April 10, 2015 – According to a new report from Navigant Research, worldwide revenue from energy storage enabling technologies (ESETs) is expected to grow from $605 million annually in 2015 to more than $21 billion by 2024.

The report, “Energy Storage Enabling Technologies,” analyzes the global market for ESETs across four market segments: utility-scale storage, community storage, residential storage, and commercial storage.

The supporting technologies associated with energy storage systems include power conversion (primarily focused on inverters), system-level software and controls, and systems integration services. Forming a “critical component of the energy storage value chain, these technologies face intensive scrutiny, as vendors come under pressure to deliver more consistent pricing,” Navigant said.

“Now that battery prices have responded to cost pressures, the associated technologies—i.e., the ESET portion of system cost—are starting to follow suit,” said Anissa Dehamna, principal research analyst with Navigant Research. “Still, the ESET portion of the value chain will average more than of total system cost across all applications over the next 10 years.”

The distribution of the market among the three ESET segments will most likely be skewed toward systems integration, according to the report. “Power conversion is a hardware market, so the ability to reduce costs is related directly to manufacturing strategies,” it also reported. As the market grows, Navigant added, the supply chain will respond, becoming more robust—much as the industry has seen with lithium ion battery cells.