Heinrich, Chatterjee, Speakes-Backman discuss future of energy storage

Federal and state officials discussed the importance of energy storage and highlighted the need for a supportive regulatory environment at the Energy Storage Association (ESA) annual Policy Forum held recently in Washington, D.C.

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) announced plans to introduce legislation to expand the Investment Tax Credit to include standalone energy storage, noting that Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) would co-sponsor the bill.

“The deployment of storage needs to be at the center of our ongoing effort to move toward a cleaner and more reliable electrical grid,” Sen. Heinrich said. “We know that renewables grow from strong and enduring tax policy and I am proud to announce that I will soon be reintroducing the Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act.”

Neil Chatterjee, chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), highlighted in his keynote speech regulations that open the markets for storage to compete on a level playing field with other technologies.

“I believe in the potential of storage to be a transformative technology for our grid,” Chatterjee said. “Storage is a game changer. I see exciting potential to lower costs and enhance reliability for customers.”

ESA CEO Kelly Speakes-Backman laid out five major energy storage trends that she said the industry must prepare for in 2019: the investment tax credit (ITC), storage as transmission, solarPLUS, integrated resource planning (IRP) and FERC Order 841.

“ESA and the storage industry as a whole saw momentous growth in 2018,” Speakes-Backman said. “We are excited to work with our member companies to ensure that 2019 sees a continued expansion of the energy storage landscape and an inclusion and integration of more viewpoints, applications, and technologies.”