Managing demand on the power grid continues to grow increasingly more complex. Along with the urgent need to reduce carbon-based energy generation, consumer demand for energy is growing and shifting hourly, daily, monthly, and seasonally. New distributed energy resources are being developed and integrated at a faster rate every day and renewable generation and its variability are being brought online faster than predicted. All these factors make it more challenging for all utilities to meet demand when and where it is needed.
As more aggressive goals are set to transition the electrical system away from fossil fuels, energy storage is poised to be the economical solution to address the rapid growth and variability of distributed renewable generation. Energy storage growth is market-driven as power can be worth less than zero at times in some regions and power providers look for ways to avoid investing in costly new generation assets. But this growth is also being incentivized and regulated by federal and an increasing number of state governments.
In early 2018, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) created Order 841 directing Regional Transmission Organizations and Independent System Operators to remove barriers to the participation of electric storage in wholesale markets. The U.S. Department of Energy announced a $30 million project to fund long duration research projects. And as of June 2019, 15 states led by California, Massachusetts, and New York have developed energy storage policies designed to meet aggressive carbon-reduction goals by encouraging further development and integration of new energy storage technologies.
Different energy storage technologies have different capabilities. Two metrics used by the U.S. Energy Information Administration to describe energy storage are power capacity and energy capacity. Power capacity is the maximum amount of power output available at any one instant and is measured in megawatts (MW). The energy capacity is the total amount of energy that a storage system can store or discharge and is measured in megawatt hours (MWh). Energy capacity is a factor of both the amount of power and the length of time that power can be discharged. A battery system that can discharge power for 4 hours or more is referred to as long duration energy storage. A Navigant Research report explains that, “Interest in long duration energy storage is rising as the rapid growth of variable output renewables continues and issues with grid stability and efficiency become more tangible for grid operators.”
Recent Comments