The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Order 841 aims to reduce barriers to the deployment of energy storage in wholesale power markets.

It lays the foundation for the energy storage market to grow by as much as five fold to 50 GW over the next decade. But at least half of that potential growth would depend on the development of state, not federal, policies to support energy storage, according to a new report by The Brattle Group.

FERC’s order has been hailed as a landmark in the development of energy storage markets. It directs the operators of wholesale power markets — regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and independent system operators (ISOs) — to remove barriers that could keep storage resources from realizing their full value.

The Brattle report and the FERC order also coincide with the release of the 2017 U.S. Energy Storage Monitor by GTM Research and the Energy Storage Association, which found 100 MWh of grid connected storage deployed in fourth-quarter 2017. GTM expects the U.S. energy storage market will almost double in 2018 alone, with more than 1,000 MWh of storage deployed this year.

And the groundwork laid by FERC Order 841 “will further encourage energy storage deployment throughout 2018 and beyond as the industry builds toward a goal of realizing 35 GW by 2025,” Energy Storage Association CEO Kelly Speakes-Backman said in a statement.

According to the Brattle report, at least half of the 50 GW energy storage market it forecasts unfolding over the next decade could come from opening up the wholesale power markets to energy storage. But the greater part of the potential growth has to come from energy storage applications that serve the transmission and distribution sectors, which are largely beyond FERC’s jurisdiction.

The new hybrid energy storage device utilises aqueous electrolytes instead of flammable organic solvents making it environmentally friendly and safe. It can also be used with portable electronic devices as it facilitates a boosting charge with high energy density.

The device was developed by Professor Jeung Ku Kang and a team of scientists from KAIST’s Graduate School of Energy, Environment, Water, and Sustainability. The team assembled fibre-like polymer chain anodes and sub-nanoscale metal oxide cathodes on graphene to develop a hybrid energy storage with high energy and power densities. Conventional aqueous electrolyte-based energy storage devices have a limitation for boosting charges and high energy density due to low driving voltage and a shortage of anode materials. The research team came up with new structures and materials to facilitate rapid speed in energy exchange on the surfaces of the electrodes and minimise the energy loss between the two electrodes. Anodes were made with graphene-based polymer chain materials, graphene having a web-like structure that produces a high surface area, thereby allowing higher capacitance.

With regard to cathodes, the team used metal oxide in sub-nanoscale structures to elevate atom-by-ion redox reactions. This method realized higher energy density and faster energy exchange while minimizing energy loss.

The device can be charged within 20 to 30 seconds using a low-power charging system, such as a USB switching charger or a flexible photovoltaic cell. The developed aqueous hybrid energy device shows more than 100-fold higher power density compared to conventional aqueous batteries and can be rapidly recharged. Further, the device showed high stability with its capacity maintained at 100 percent at a high charge/discharge current.

MISO’s Energy Storage Task Force has been left wondering if it will help shape the RTO’s response to FERC’s sweeping storage participation order issued last month.

The task force has yet to learn its role in working with MISO staff to craft market rules to comply with Order 841, which directs RTOs and ISOs to remove barriers preventing storage from participating in energy, capacity and ancillary service markets. RTOs will be given 270 days from publication in the Federal Register to file revised tariff language with FERC outlining a participation model and another year to implement the changes.

“Frankly, we don’t know how this will affect the task force,” task force Chair John Fernandes said during a March 1 meeting. He added that MISO’s Steering Committee would have to issue a directive for the task force to begin specifically considering Order 841 compliance. Until then, the group will continue to examine what MISO rules might need to be revised or added to enable storage to participate in markets. (See MISO Staff, Stakeholders Envision Expanded Storage Participation.) Wisconsin Public Service’s Chris Plante pointed out that MISO doesn’t necessarily run compliance filings by stakeholders before they are filed with FERC.

The RTO says it will use stakeholder input on the compliance filing, although it’s not yet clear how extensively stakeholders or the task force will guide the process.

“MISO is actively working on the Order 841 compliance filing though it has not yet appeared in the Federal Register,” spokesman Mark Brown said. “While the compliance obligation lies with MISO, MISO intends to leverage its stakeholder groups to get input from stakeholders as it works through the issues as identified in the filing. This includes the Energy Storage Task Force and other stakeholder subcommittees.”

Fernandes said FERC’s order defines storage as resources that can inject into the grid, making them eligible for make-whole payments and qualification as capacity resources.

“FERC was clear that they don’t want to change market rules to accommodate storage, but they want it to be able to participate,” Fernandes said. “The idea of this order is to allow storage to participate in markets considering their operating characteristics.”

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has predicted peak demand this summer will break previous records due in part by a booming economy.

Additionally, reserves will tighten due to the recent retirement of older generating units.

Total resource capacity for the upcoming summer is expected to be 77,658 MW. The preliminary summer SARA report includes a 72,974 MW summer peak load forecast based on normal weather conditions for 2002-2016.

This forecast is higher than the all-time summer peak demand record of 71,110 MW set on Aug. 11, 2016. Almost 3,800 MW in new generation resources began operating in 2017, and more than 14,000 MW of resources are planned to be in service by 2020.

San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), one of California’s three main investor-owned utilities (IOUs), said this week that it will add resilience and backup capabilities to public sector buildings through the procurement of “up to 166MW” of energy storage.

According to a proposal submitted by the utility to regulator California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), public sector buildings that serve as emergency facilities during emergency situations, providing safety and security in earthquakes, forest fires and other potential disasters, would be supported by seven energy storage projects.

Fire stations, police stations, evacuation sites and emergency operation centres would host the systems. It appears all seven projects have been proposed and to some extent developed already, with their installation planned in phases leading up to completion by 2024.

The utility is also including in the procurement drive a means for nonprofit care facilities to receive incentives to purchase energy storage systems. The Energy Storage Customer Program Pilot, as it will be known, will enable care homes of various types to receive cash sums towards funding system purchases. Currently, California also has in place the statewide SGIP (Self-generation Incentive Program) which offers residential and business customers incentives on purchases of storage systems, but only if deployed in combination with solar PV.

SDG&E said the filing of the proposal is in line with the terms of California legislature Assembly Bill 2868, which was brought into law by CPUC in late 2016. It instructs the state’s investor-owned utilities, bound by another rule, AB2514, to put in place plans to deploy between them 1.35GW of energy storage in their service areas by 2020, to “file applications for programs and investments to accelerate widespread deployment of distributed energy storage systems”. SDG&E said it expects to deploy more than 330MW of energy storage by 2030.