New industry white paper establishes energy storage collaboration as major cost reduction and market boost
A white paper released this week by Grid Strategies and the U.S. Energy Storage Association (ESA) claims that the integration of energy storage into power plants will boost market competitiveness and lower consumer costs.
The paper is called Enabling Versatility: Allowing Hybrid Resources to Deliver their Full Value to Customers. Built on interviews with developers of hybrid resources, grid operators, and transmission owners, it tries to identify the barriers facing such hybrid resources and establish workarounds. Its recommendations as such were to establish near and long-term changes to interconnection and market participation rules for greater integration. It also outlines industry practices, market rules and regulations it has labeled in need of update, along with explaining why the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and regional grid operators need to act quickly to guarantee such a market develops appropriately.
“The surge of market interest in hybrids is moving faster than the evolution of market rules, as the report concludes,” Kelly Speakes-Backman, ESA CEO, said. “This is why changes surrounding energy storage deployment—whether they be market rules, state regulations or federal legislation, like the enactment of a stand-alone Investment Tax Credit for energy storage—must happen quickly if we are to guarantee a flexible, modern electric grid that meets demand for the next several decades.”
The report notes that these hybrid systems can respond to economic signals easier than more traditional generators. However, the barriers currently in place limit their ability to compete and block their abilities to lower wholesale electric costs. Its proponents ultimately seek a storage-plus-generation deployed to the bulk power system.
One way the study says this can be advanced is through a rule similar to the FERC order which enabled participation of stand-alone energy storage resources on the electric grid.
