Role of Policy in Development of Business Models for Battery Storage Deployment : The California Case Study

California has been one of the early adopters of new energy storage technologies within the United States. The state has used multiple policy initiatives such as deployment targets, financial incentives, and market mechanism to facilitate such a market development. This motivates us to try to understand the various business models in the state and the minimum set of barriers that must be overcome for its successful deployment (and thereby development of the market). In our study, the former is achieved by assessing the various projects in the state, and the latter by creating a barrier-solution framework and verifying it by identifying the role of various policies/drivers in supporting various business models within California. We find that there are predominantly three business models in California: one for each Front-of-the-Meter, Behind-the-Meter, and Aggregated Behind-the-meter. We also find that at least one barrier from barrier categories associated with market demand and project economics along with all the barriers related to interconnection and market participation must be addressed for successful deployment of energy storage. Additionally, we recommend policy makers seeking to develop an energy storage market to start with developing Behind-the-meter market as it requires the least amount of intervention and then move to developing Front-of-the-meter market, and finally to aggregation of Behind-the-meter market