Legislation was introduced in both the House and Senate this week to encourage the development of energy storage systems in the United States. In the House, Congressman Bill Foster (D-IL) introduced the Better Energy Storage Technology (BEST) Act of 2019, co-sponsored by Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA), Congressman Sean Casten (D-IL), and Congressman Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH). Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Cory Gardner (R-CO), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Coons (D-DE), Martha McSally (R-AZ) and Angus King (I-ME) introduced a companion BEST Act in the Senate.

The bipartisan legislation aims to support grid-scale energy storage R&D and improve the efficiency of the nation’s electric grid, while helping to align research efforts on energy storage technologies.

“Next generation energy storage devices will help enhance the efficiency and reliability of our electric grid, reduce energy costs, and promote the adoption of renewable resources,” said Senator Collins. “Our bipartisan legislation would help catalyze the development of this technology that holds great promise in the fight against climate change by supporting clean energy generation, including wind and solar.”

“If enacted, the BEST Act will authorize the Department of Energy to undertake new public-private partnerships for proving promising electrochemical, thermal, and physical storage technologies in actual electric grid operations. Doing so will ensure a fuller range of storage options is available to meet the needs of a 21st century electric system,” said Energy Storage Association CEO Kelly Speakes-Backman.

The BEST Act legislation aims to increase the affordability of this technology by directing the DOE to pursue a strategic plan and implement cost targets.

Thanks to “innovative business models” and the combination of PV with batteries, Japan’s “solar boom” is far from over, market expert Izumi Kaizuka of RTS PV has said.

Despite the imminent demise of higher level subsidy payments for solar energy fed into the grid, Japan’s consumers, businesses and utilities continue to demand clean energy solutions, while other factors including deregulation of the electricity market help bolster the business case for solar-plus-storage in particular.

Kaizuka met with Energy-Storage.news for an update on the world’s second-biggest annual market for solar by deployment, at last week’s Intersolar Europe / ees Europe show in Munich, Germany.

According to RTS’ figures, Japan installed 6.5GW of solar in 2018. The country, which introduced a feed-in tariff (FiT) in 2009 and then pushed those rates up even further to stimulate market growth in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident, as the Asian country, heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels as well as its dozens of now-shuttered nuclear generators, sought to establish its energy independence.

Choices made by consumers and policymakers will shape the future
Much has been written about that secondary boom, which began in the summer of 2012. At one point, it became clear that high FiT rates had attracted more would-be developers of large-scale projects than the grid could handle, while the cost of deploying multiple gigawatts of solar each year in a country where available land is scarce became a political issue.

At one point, it was thought that as much as 50GW of approved but still-not-built projects could lose their agreed feed-in tariff. It seems that now, a definitive measure is in place for the backlog to be cleared.

“Regarding ‘big’ projects, or those over 10kW anyway, METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) has set a due date for these,” RTS PV’s Izumi Kaizuka said.

“They must secure grid connection agreements during 2020 and if they do so they will keep the level of feed-in tariff (FiT) applicable at the time they were approved. If they fail to secure this grid connection agreement, the FiT applicable to the electricity sold from their solar power plant will fall to ¥21 (US$0.19) per kWh sold. In 2020, it’s likely there will be a big rush to get these projects completed.”

The cost of energy storage is plummeting as performance is improving, and Congress is moving to help storage technologies continue to advance. Spurring innovation is far from all we need to do to address the climate crisis facing us, but it’s a necessary component and a start to development of comprehensive solutions.

After years in which many in Congress have done all they can to deny the science of climate change or avoid taking steps to address it, it’s reassuring to see lawmakers of both political parties acknowledging the facts and taking the first steps to grapple with it. Deploying technologies to save the surge in solar power on a sunny afternoon or wind power from a blustery night is one part of making our electric grid cleaner and greener.

Energy storage is increasingly recognized by both Republicans and Democrats as a necessary tool to unlock more clean energy like wind and solar, increase flexibility to meet changing patterns of electricity demand, provide essential grid services, and provide emergency power in times of disaster.

The Better Energy Storage Technology (BEST) Act, which was introduced by Senators Collins, Heinrich, Smith, Gardner, Coons, McSally, and King, adds to the growing set of energy storage bills introduced this Congress aimed at accelerating development and deployment of solutions to meet the emerging challenges of a cleaner electricity grid.

Customers procuring energy storage systems are emphasising their demand for energy, as well as power, as the market shifts to longer durations, a representative of Saft has said.

The European battery manufacturer has been active in the energy storage system (ESS) market since 2012, delivering around 100MW of operational projects to date. The recent launch at ees Europe of Saft’s new 20ft containerised NMC lithium-ion battery storage systems, available in 2.5MWh ‘blocks’, is a direct response to growing interest in energy storage for applications that go beyond storing and shifting short durations of energy to serve high-power applications, company energy storage business development and marketing manager Michael Lippert said.

“When we started to deliver our first containers, but at that time, the market was rather a paying for power [type of market] and so, therefore, our first generations of containers were more power-oriented, so for frequency regulation and for smoothing applications or ramp control,” Lippert told Energy-Storage.news at the show last week.

“Today, the energy storage market has very strongly shifted to more energy products. People are asking for two hours, four hours or maybe even more.”

According to Lippert, there are a variety of markets that are beginning to demand higher energy systems, although currently, the world’s maturing solar markets are showing the most interest. While storage systems by Saft and others were first deployed in those regions to deliver grid-balancing, through services such as frequency regulation to integrate renewable capacity onto networks, Saft’s customers find there is now a case for pairing renewables more closely with batteries.

Energy storage is increasingly finding its place in the sun. As a technology, it simply offers too many advantages and meets too many needs to be overlooked: it can ramp faster than a gas plant, it can stabilize voltage and frequency, and it can carry electrons from solar generation to deliver power after dark.

When you add to this the dramatic cost declines for lithium-ion batteries, the combination becomes unstoppable.

Regulators, utilities and state governments are beginning to understand this, and among other policies the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Order 841 is opening wholesale markets to the participation of energy storage. Add in the tax advantages of coupling energy storage with solar under the Investment Tax Credit (ITC), and you have the perfect storm.

According to IHS Markit, the U.S. grid-tied energy storage market is poised to nearly double this year to 712 MW from 376 MW last year (note: This forecast does not include behind-the-meter energy storage). The company says that this will allow the United States to surpass South Korea, which was the world’s largest grid-tied energy storage market in 2017 and 2018.

And that is just the beginning. IHS expects nearly 5 GW of energy storage – 90% of which will be lithium-ion batteries – to be deployed in the United States from 2019 to 2023.

ITC drop down drives growth

The consultancy says that a big driver of the growth of energy storage deployments over the next four years will be batteries coupled with utility-scale solar, which it expects to comprise more than 40% of battery deployments, or roughly 2 GW.

This is made possible by multiple factors, including falling costs. But a main driver of the growth over this period will be the narrowing window of opportunity presented by the ITC, which drops down to 10% at the end of 2022 and can be used for paired solar + storage if the batteries are mostly charged using solar.

The full 30% ITC can only be claimed if projects start construction by the end of this year, however because of this provision the completion of many large-scale solar projects is expected to be stretched over the full four years, and it is likely that solar plus storage will follow this pattern.

One of the big issues with sustainable energy systems is how to store electricity that’s generated from wind, solar and waves. At present, no existing technology provides large-scale storage and energy retrieval for sustainable energy at a low financial and environmental cost.

Engineered electroactive microbes could be part of the solution; these microbes are capable of borrowing an electron from solar or wind electricity and using the energy to break apart carbon dioxide molecules from the air. The microbes can then take the carbon atoms to make biofuels, such as isobutanol or propanol, that could be burned in a generator or added to gasoline, for example.

“We think biology plays a significant role in creating a sustainable energy infrastructure,” said Buz Barstow, assistant professor of biological and environmental engineering. “Some roles will be supporting roles and some will be major roles, and we’re trying to find all of those places where biology can work.”

Barstow is the senior author of “Electrical Energy Storage With Engineered Biological Systems,” published May 3 in the Journal of Biological Engineering.

Adding electrically engineered (synthetic or non-biological) elements could make this approach even more productive and efficient than microbes alone. At the same time, having many options also creates too many engineering choices. The study supplies information to determine the best design based on needs.

“We are suggesting a new approach where we stitch together biological and non-biological electrochemical engineering to create a new method to store energy,” said Farshid Salimijazi, a graduate student in Barstow’s lab and the paper’s first author.

Natural photosynthesis already offers an example for storing solar energy at a huge scale, and turning it into biofuels in a closed carbon loop. It captures about six times as much solar energy in a year as all civilization uses over the same time. But, photosynthesis is really inefficient at harvesting sunlight, absorbing less than one percent of the energy that hits photosynthesizing cells.

In an Order on Rehearing and Clarification issued at its May open meeting, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or “Commission”) generally affirmed Order No. 841, its 2018 Final Rule on electric storage.1 Electric storage resources—including batteries, flywheels, and pumped-hydro projects—are capable of receiving electricity from the grid and storing it for later injection back into the grid. Order No. 841 is intended to pave the way for storage to play a larger role in the wholesale power markets regulated by FERC—a necessity, some argue, as the grid becomes increasingly reliant on intermittent resources such as wind and solar.

In Order No. 841, issued February 15, 2018, FERC determined that current Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) and Independent System Operator (ISO) market rules are unjust and unreasonable.2 FERC determined that the existing rules impose unlawful barriers to participation for storage resources, thereby reducing competition and failing to ensure just and reasonable rates.3 FERC required each RTO/ISO to revise its tariff to establish rules that facilitate storage participation in the wholesale markets.4 Each RTO/ISO must ensure that storage resources can provide all of the energy, capacity and ancillary services they are capable of providing and are eligible to set wholesale market clearing prices as both a seller and a buyer.5

The most contentious issue in the proceeding was a familiar one: where, exactly, is the line between federal and state jurisdiction in the power markets?6 Under the Federal Power Act (FPA), FERC has jurisdiction over wholesale sales of electric energy, including the ISO/RTO markets, as well as the transmission of electric energy in interstate commerce.7 States, meanwhile, have jurisdiction over retail sales of electric energy and the local distribution of electric energy to end users.8 Many electric generators, particularly renewables and other nontraditional resources like electric storage, are interconnected at the state-regulated distribution level, but sell their output into the FERC-regulated wholesale markets. Order No. 841 applies to all storage resources that meet certain technical requirements, regardless of whether they are interconnected to the transmission system, the distribution system or are located “behind-the-meter.”

Several parties argued on rehearing that FERC exceeded its jurisdiction in the Final Rule when it determined that states may not decide whether storage resources interconnected at the distribution level may participate in the RTO/ISO markets. According to these parties, the Final Rule would mandate that storage resources be given access to local distribution facilities, over which FERC has no authority, so that they may reach the FERC-regulated wholesale markets. Putting aside the jurisdictional question, other parties asked FERC to exercise its discretion to adopt a state “opt out” for facilities interconnected to state-jurisdictional distribution facilities, similar to the opt-out provision FERC has provided for demand response.

One must wonder if New Hampshire, after seeing the large size of Vermont’s demand charge savings, has its own peaker envy.

The New Hampshire House & Senate have sent a veto-proof increase to 5 MWac in the capacity of systems that can quality for net metering to the governor’s office to sign. As well, the Senate has passed, and the House is currently reviewing, a bill that will start the process of the state getting 15% of its peak demand from energy storage resources.

Concurrently with the legislative pushes, are increases in solar power that is being built in the state, but not necessarily for the state. Per coverage by Bob Sanders of the local NH Business Review, there is more than 215 MWac (below image) in the state’s queue.

NextEra Energy has two projects totaling 80 MWac of capacity in the pipeline, one of which is the 30 MW Chinook Solar Project in Fitzwilliam that has power purchase agreements bid into Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut with a two-year delayed completion date scheduled for the end of 2021.

The net metering legislation also has language that doesn’t allow net metered solar electricity to be resold into the ISO New England regional market, as state legislatures wanted to protect in-state electric consumers. The report from the Public Utilities Commission of the state noted that there were 25 projects in the state with a nameplate capacity between 1 and 5 MWac that, once they “no longer have a capacity commitment with ISO-NE or are no longer a registered generator with ISO-NE”, could shift to net metering status. However it was noted that this process takes a long time and wouldn’t have an effect until after fiscal year 2023.

The energy storage legislation first seeks to set up a commission by the end of 2019, that will set in process at least two energy storage pilot projects per utility by the end of 2021. Concurrently, this commission will start a proceeding to determine if an energy storage target, or goal of reducing the state’s peak demand by a specific percentage of up to 15% when discharging coincidentally, would provide net financial benefits to ratepayers.

If it finds that this creates such a financial benefit, some goal – or the 15% specifically – will be set to be met by 2030. The legislation also notes that if it can be done competently, then at least half of the energy storage will be procured by non-utility actors.