Germany's pledge of €50 million in incentives is the latest indicator that industry's time has come.
The program will apply to newly-installed PV facilities with storage and solar plants with storage systems installed after December 31, 2012.
Subsidizing a storage system's energy capacity rather than its power capacity, as does California's Self Generation Incentive Program (SGIP), is a more logical approach, says Brian Warshay of Lux Research, because the solar shifting application requires more energy than power.
Research firm NanoMarkets believes the growth of the solar storage market is driven by declining costs for PV modules and reductions in government support for solar power. Without attractive subsidies, self-consumption can be more valuable than selling power and storage becomes desirable. NanoMarkets predicts that demand for storage in the residential and commercial sectors will soon show rapid growth.