Advanced Energy Perspectives

When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced and opened applications for a new school bus procurement funding program last fall, school districts from every corner of the country rushed to apply. Unfortunately, over 70 Pennsylvania districts from across the Commonwealth were waitlisted or deprioritized for funding from the nationwide Clean School Bus Program. There simply wasn’t enough funding set aside to meet the enthusiasm of school administrators for electric school buses in Pennsylvania.

This blog post is an excerpt from the Advanced Energy Now 2023 Market Report, prepared for Advanced Energy United by  Guidehouse  Insights. This post is the fifth in a series of excerpts from the report. 

Worldwide, Advanced Electricity Delivery and Management (ED&M) products and services, which includes a subset of the overall ED&M market, achieved an 11% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for the period 2017 to 2022; in the U.S., the CAGR was 13% over that same period.  

The year 2022 was the biggest for the segment since we started tracking it in 2011, recording 15% annual growth globally and 16% in the U.S. While global growth was slightly slower in 2021, at 14%, ED&M grew significantly in the U.S. (+41%) due to the proliferation of large-scale energy storage. The impact of energy storage technologies on total market growth has been quite significant over the past two years. For example, when excluding the Energy Storage subsegment, ED&M annual market growth in 2021 falls from 14% to 9% globally, and from 41% to 19% in the U.S. 

Batteries and other energy storage resources are increasingly touted as a critical piece of the clean energy transition – but, as a relatively new and dynamic resource, evaluating and integrating storage projects requires a fresh approach. On October 18, the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission (PUC) released a much-anticipated final report regarding the value of and need for energy storage resources in the state. Although there are insights from both the process and final document that are instructive to policymakers in Rhode Island and beyond, the report lacks the necessary urgency and ambition to accelerate storage adoption and create a vibrant energy storage market in the Ocean State. 

Renewable energy is now the most cost-effective form of power, electric vehicles are competitive with gas combustion vehicles, and grid-edge business innovations and demand-side management technologies are revolutionizing the way consumers use and control their energy. Following the federal energy legislation boom in 2022, the advanced energy industry stands at the edge of an opportunity to grasp the clean energy goals that are being set throughout the country.  

But we won’t achieve these goals without significant changes to the way businesses engage with decision-makers and consumers. To get there, the industry needs a united, sustained approach from the businesses leading the transition. 

This blog post is an excerpt from the Advanced Energy Now 2023 Market Report, prepared for Advanced Energy United by Guidehouse Insights. This post is the fourth in a series of excerpts from the report.