Batteries & Battery Recycling

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved tariff terms for a Regional Transmission Operator (RTO) to treat electric storage resources as transmission facilities under certain circumstances.  Previously, FERC approved only one case-specific proposal to treat storage as transmission.  Treatment as a transmission facility provides additional deployment opportunities for storage resources and allows cost recovery through cost-of service transmission rates instead of relying entirely on energy market revenues.  Commissioner James Danly, however, dissented from the tariff order, preferring to maintain the bright line between generation and transmission previously established by FERC.
Continue Reading Electric Storage May Be Treated as Transmission

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has announced two conferences to address issues raised by the increasing deployment of electric storage resources and their use in electricity markets.  One conference will address a proposal by a Regional Transmission Operator (RTO) to treat an electric storage facility as a transmission-only resource if it can resolve specific transmission issues.  The second conference will discuss issues raised by hybrid resources, i.e., a storage resources paired with a generation resources.  These conferences should be of interest to a wide range of electricity market participants, including utilities, generation companies, customers and investors in storage and other electricity resources.
Continue Reading FERC Conferences to Address Electric Storage Issues

The Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), a Regional Transmission Organization (RTO), has proposed to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) tariff provisions that would treat electric storage facilities as transmission-only facilities if they provide the preferred solution to a transmission issue in MISO’s regional planning process.  This is the first such proposal by a wholesale electric market operator.  Up to now, storage facility requests to qualify as transmission facilities have been few and case-specific.  Treatment as a transmission resource provides additional deployment opportunities for storage resources and allows them cost recovery through cost-based transmission rates instead of relying on energy market revenues.  Standardized tariff-based terms and conditions for qualifying as a transmission resource should provide an easier path to such treatment.
Continue Reading Proposal to Treat Electric Storage as Transmission Now Before FERC

In a project that the World Bank hopes will be a catalyst for implementing its climate change strategy in low and middle-income countries, Eskom, South Africa’s 100% state-owned electricity utility, will launch a tender for a 1.4 gigawatt-hours battery energy storage system (“BESS”). The tender will likely be issued in the first or second quarter of 2020, pending final governmental approval. The completed BESS will have a daily capacity of 1.4 gigawatt-hours of energy output (which is sufficient energy to power 1.4 million homes for an hour). The project is the first of its kind on the African continent.
Continue Reading South Africa Prepares for a Battery Energy Storage System Tender

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has issued an order denying all requests for rehearing of its rule aimed at clearing away obstacles to participation by electric storage resources in wholesale markets administered by Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) and Independent System Operators (ISOs).[1]  Electric storage resources often complement renewable resources when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing.  Easing the entry of storage is likely to have a growing impact on electricity markets and the mix of resources used to meet demand in those markets.  Accordingly, FERC’s action should be of interest to a wide range of electricity market participants including utilities, generation companies, and investors in storage and other electricity resources and electricity customers.
Continue Reading FERC Denies Rehearing on Electricity Storage Rule

Energy storage has frequently been cited as the critical missing link in an electric infrastructure designed to maximize the benefits of cheap, renewable energy.  Because energy from the sun and the wind is inherently intermittent, it has not been able to satisfy a round-the-clock need for electricity.  And in many…
Continue Reading Does California Offer a National Model For Energy Storage Rules?

Electric storage resources such as batteries and flywheels are shaping the grid of the future. The ability of these resources to absorb and discharge electricity gives the resources operational flexibility that allows them to provide a variety of services to help keep the power grid in balance.  Energy storage installations in the U.S. grew 100% in 2016.  Most of the new resources were utility scale but 25% were commercial and residential systems.

As discussed previously in this blog, FERC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) intended to knock down barriers to storage resource participation in the organized wholesale electricity markets administered by Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) and Independent System Operators (ISOs).[1]  FERC’s proposal would require each RTO to revise its tariff in two ways:

  • Establish market rules that recognize the physical and operational characteristics of storage resources and accommodate their participation. Storage resources that participate in wholesale markets must do so under rules designed for other types of resources.
  • Allow distributed energy resource aggregators to participate in the markets. Individual distributed energy resources may be too small to meet minimum size requirements or have difficulty satisfying operational performance requirements of the markets. Allowing these resources to participate through aggregations can enable them to satisfy requirements that they could not meet on a stand-alone basis.

FERC received comments on its proposal from more than seventy entities across a broad  spectrum of the industry.  This post summarizes the major issues raised in the comments.Continue Reading FERC Gets Comments on Electric Storage Proposal

A previous post on this blog reported a complaint by an electric storage resource owner that FERC must reform a Regional Transmission Organization’s (RTO’s) tariff with respect to the treatment of storage batteries.  In response, FERC issued an Order that requires the RTO to adopt rules that allow storage resources to participate in all of its markets and that account for those resources’ physical and operational characteristics.  The Order is significant because it breaks down barriers to the participation of storage resources in energy, capacity and ancillary services markets in an RTO whose rules are shown to violate the policies proposed in FERC’s Storage NOPR.
Continue Reading FERC Addresses Electric Storage Complaint

As part of an ongoing effort to address issues raised by, and encourage the entry of, distributed energy resources, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last week issued a Policy Statement clarifying the flexibility electric storage resources have regarding rate designs to recover their costs.  FERC earlier proposed rules to remove barriers to the participation of storage and other distributed resources in the organized wholesale electricity markets administered by Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs).  These policies and rules are of interest to storage operators and investors, grid managers, other participants in RTO markets and consumers of storage services.

Storage resources, such as large-scale batteries and flywheels, are able to both absorb and discharge electricity.  These resources can provide multiple services almost instantaneously and thus may fit into more than one of the traditional asset functions of generation, transmission, and distribution.  The Policy Statement provides guidance for storage resources that want to charge rates for providing multiple types of services.
Continue Reading FERC Clarifies Cost Recovery Flexibility for Electric Storage Resources

The African continent is revolutionizing itself as the place where no infrastructure is no problem.  This began in the telecommunications field:  Africa lacks a robust system of landlines, which traditionally enable better access to desktop computers, online services, and financial institutions.  But the emergence of cellular telephony has allowed…
Continue Reading What the Home Battery Could Mean for Africa