Industry, government align to create new toolkit for regulators and utilities dealing with energy storage

Emerging from the work of a collection of industry organizations, with the support of the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office, a new toolkit was unveiled last week to offer recommendations for regulators and utilities on the subject of energy storage interconnection.

“By modernizing the rules that govern the interconnection of energy storage systems, regulators and utilities can enable significantly more renewable energy on the distribution grid–in some cases as much as double the capacity,” Larry Sherwood, Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) president and CEO, said. “They can also make the interconnection process faster, predictable, and less costly for applicants. These changes are urgently needed as more and more states target bold climate and clean energy goals; fortunately, the Toolkit provides regulators with actionable and ready-to-implement guidance.”

The Toolkit and Guidance for the Interconnection of Energy Storage and Solar-Plus-Storage is a guide that offers fully reviewed solutions for eight regulatory and technical barriers interfering with interconnection to the distribution grid. Challenges included:

• Lack of inclusion of storage in interconnection rules and lack of clarity as to whether those rules apply to storage systems
• Lack of methods for controlling the export of energy from limited and non-export distributed energy resource (DER) systems in interconnection rules
• How to evaluate limited and non-export DER systems
• Uncertainty regarding the impacts of inadvertent export and lack of a uniform specification for export control equipment response times
• Lack of distribution grid transparency
• Lack of ability to make system design changes to address grid impacts and avoid upgrades during the interconnection review process
• States that haven’t updated standards for interconnection procedures and technical requirements
• Lack of rules and processes for evaluation of operating schedules or of when a DER will export energy to the grid

The Toolkit’s creators – IREC, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), California Solar & Storage Association (CALSSA), utilities New Hampshire Electric Cooperative Inc. (NHEC), PacifiCorp, and law firm Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger, LLP (SMW) – pitched energy storage as pivotal to the transition to a low-carbon economy. However, the failure to address existing barriers could impede the ability to interconnect storage systems to the larger grid. 

Their recommendations followed more than a year of research and analysis.