North Carolina panel bullish on energy storage
Energy storage will not only help North Carolina replace coal-powered electricity in the state in the coming decades but may also offset the need for new natural gas plants as well.
A study of the energy storage landscape was submitted to the state’s General Assembly in early December that will serve as a roadmap to help lawmakers and regulators fully develop the technology. North Carolina is currently in the initial phases of deploying energy storage facilities; however, the report authored by the team of university experts concluded that storing electricity could not only smooth out peak demand periods, but would also become a reliable everyday piece of the region’s fuel mix.
“In the moderate range of capacity, like the 300 megawatts (MW) of energy storage capacity that Duke Energy has proposed to build over the next 15 years, power storage could offset the construction of a gas power plant altogether,” said Jeremiah Johnson, a member of the report’s team of authors and an associate professor at North Carolina State University. “At the high end, more than a gigawatt (GW), you can offset the need for multiple power plants.”
The report notes that North Carolina is facing an increasing penetration of renewable energy amid pressure to decrease coal-fired electricity production. “We believe that now is the appropriate time to consider the role that energy storage may play in the state’s future power system. Energy storage can help ensure reliable service, decrease costs to rate payers, and reduce the environmental impacts of electricity production,” the report said.
A team of experts from North Carolina State and North Carolina Central University was given the task by the legislature of assessing the potential for energy storage in the state under a bill signed in 2017. The study team looked at a wide range of potential benefits and challenges to energy storage in a state where the technology is just getting off the ground.
The group was dubbed the NC Policy Collaboratory and looked at battery, stored hydropower, and ice thermal storage. Because of the ability needed to store electricity for literally a rainy day, the group focused on three issues: identifying regulatory steps needed to allow energy storage expansion to proceed, including assisting local governments with decisions on zoning and other land-use permitting; determining what policies are necessary to make energy storage cost effective; and recommending steps that will increase the pace of energy storage deployment.
“We recommended a range of options rather than championing any specific approach,” said Joseph DeCarolis an associate professor at North Carolina State, who is also a member of the study team. “Proponents of a particular energy storage strategy could be dissatisfied, but our job was to outline the costs and benefits, opportunities and challenges, associated with energy storage.”
North Carolina is just getting started in the development of energy storage. The entire state has just 1 MW of battery storage online, although Duke Energy, the region’s primary electric company, has announced plans to invest $500 million to deploy 300 MW of new capacity over the next 15 years in both North and South Carolina. Ice storage, in fact, is the current leader in energy storage with 80 operational systems providing cooling at major commercial complexes throughout the region.
One particular change the policy group saw on the horizon was the storage of power downstream from wind farms and fossil-fuel plants. Storing electricity on microgrids and at substations could change the entire definition of energy storage to a source of power. That new definition, the panel said, would influence the economics of storage facilities in areas including taxes and cost-recovery rates.
But the primary role of energy storage will be as part of the toolkit of larger renewable and conventional power generators looking to smooth out periods of peak demand. “Energy storage has value beyond its relevance to renewable energy,” said DeCarolis. “For example, power utilities have to balance electricity generation with consumer demand. Energy storage gives utilities a potentially more efficient way to do this, driving down costs.”
