Energy Storage

The European Parliament and Council are about to adopt an agreed text on a Regulation on Batteries and Waste Batteries (“Sustainable Batteries Regulation” or “SBR”) that will impose a broad range of requirements on the safety, sustainability and circularity of batteries, including batteries that are part of devices (e.g., laptop batteries), industrial batteries (e.g., large stationary storage applications) and means of transport batteries (e.g., car batteries), as well as extended producer responsibility obligations (including waste take back) on producers marketing them.  The SBR is likely to be published in the official journal of the EU within the next couple of months and will repeal and replace the existing EU Directive on Batteries and Waste Batteries.

This post outlines the specific removability and replaceability requirements that the SBR will impose on portable batteries and light means of transport (“LMT”) batteries (e.g., batteries for electric bicycles) marketed in the EU/EEA as of around September/October 2026.  The new requirements will oblige producers of appliances to introduce design changes to their appliances and the batteries they incorporate.  Moreover, clarifying the details of such requirements is likely to create much controversy and debate among the European Commission, Member States and other stakeholders within the next two years.  In effect, the SBR leaves it to the Commission to adopt guidelines interpreting the different removability and replaceability requirements. 

The post also briefly mentions the political compromise that the European Parliament and Council reached on the removability and replaceability of electrical vehicle batteries and “starting, lighting and ignition” (“SLI”) batteries, and its emphasis on ensuring that such batteries be removable and replaceable by “independent professionals” (and not just authorized dealers).Continue Reading New Removability and Replaceability Requirements for Batteries Marketed in the European Union

This blog is the nineteenth in our series, “The ABC’s of the AJP.”

Increasing grid-scale energy storage in the United States is a critical part of infrastructure development.  President Biden’s American Jobs Plan (AJP) would place investments in energy storage at the center of his goals of achieving a net-zero electricity sector by 2035 and making the electricity grid more resilient.  These investments would also support the Administration’s efforts to secure an end-to-end domestic supply chain for high-capacity batteries and the critical minerals that go into them.
Continue Reading Scaling Energy Storage Solutions and Securing Supply Chains

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

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

Technological advances in distributed generation and battery storage and their consequent falling costs have the potential to significantly change the electric utility business model and regulatory policies.  While change seems likely, there are varying views on its scope, probability and timing.  Two are presented here.

One perspective is that fundamental
Continue Reading The Impact of Distributed Generation On Electric Utilities: How Big, How Likely and How Soon?

Many forces are converging to focus the debate on the evolving role of utilities, and events and trends are being closely watched by utilities, regulators and policymakers.  Just in the last week or so, a few developments indicate that new technologies are likely to be transformative.

On the innovation front,
Continue Reading Evolving Role of Utilities: Indicators That New Power Technologies May Be Transformative

Half of the new electricity generation plants added in 2013 are fired by natural gas and almost 30% of new generation is powered by solar and wind energy, according to an April 8 report from the Energy Information Administration.  This combination is likely to mean even more demands on the
Continue Reading New gas-fired and renewable generators stress natural gas infrastructure; more gas storage may be the answer.

FERC recently revised its rules for interconnecting small generation facilities (no more than 20 MW) to the grid.  Among other things, the new rules provide increased flexibility in qualifying for a “fast track” interconnection process, especially for solar and energy storage resources.

Under FERC’s small generator interconnection procedures, a generator
Continue Reading FERC Revises Interconnection Rules for Small Generators