In recent months, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has taken several steps toward fully incorporating energy storage in U.S. wholesale energy markets — which, if successful, could be a major boon for the energy storage industry.
These actions reflect the fact that there’s an exponential amount of energy storage slated to come on-line, as well as its “unique abilities to help in different ways,” said Acting FERC Chairman Cheryl LaFleur, speaking this week at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ winter meeting.
“Sometimes it [benefits] transmission, sometimes it’s generation, sometimes it can help with ancillary services, and we’re proposing to require changes in the wholesale market to reflect that,” said the commissioner, who is a Democrat.
In November, FERC issued a proposed rulemaking that would require each regional transmission organization and independent system operator to remove any barriers in their tariff structure that are inhibiting the market participation of storage resources.
“We wanted them to be able to participate to the full extent of their capabilities,” said LaFleur.
The same proposal would also allow distributed energy resources, including but not limited to energy storage, to be aggregated and bid directly into organized wholesale markets. The proposal specifies that resources looking to participate at the wholesale level cannot already be receiving payments through the distribution system, such as net metering.
Commissioner LaFleur has expressed some concerns over opening up market competition and is viewed by some as more friendly to traditional market players. And with three seats currently unfilled on the five-member FERC panel, there’s uncertainty around how, and how quickly, energy storage and other advanced energy technologies will be recognized at the national level.
Several clean energy stakeholders filed comments on Monday urging FERC to allow advanced energy technologies to compete on providing energy and reliability services.
The proposed rule was just the first step in opening up energy markets. FERC commissioners still have to decide whether to finalize it — which will have to wait until the open seats are filled. Regional markets will then have 18 months to change their tariffs, which is a process that goes through FERC review and is also judicially challengeable.
“These technologies aren’t new,” said Arvin Ganesan, vice president of federal affairs at Advanced Energy Economy. “So it’s not a matter of whether they can technically provide [grid] services, but it becomes a question of whether RTOs will change their tariffs to allow these technologies to compete to provide that service.”
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