As the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) released an update to last year’s order on energy storage, MRS Energy & Sustainability today publishes a timely collection of papers that unpack the issue of energy storage in the Midwest and beyond.
Last February, FERC unanimously approved a landmark order in the fast-developing field of energy storage. FERC Order 841 directed grid operators across the US to develop market rules for energy storage to participate in the wholesale energy, capacity and ancillary services markets by treating storage as a generation resource.
The order was designed to enhance competition and to promote greater efficiency in the national electric wholesale market—and it effectively opened the floodgates for energy storage in wholesale markets. However, the FERC proposals have also stored up some problems for the future, which are examined in more detail in these three articles by leading experts from industry and academia in the Midwest.
A review by Ellen Anderson from the Energy Transition Lab at the University of Minnesota focuses on a story that no one else is telling: the conspicuous transformation of energy storage in the Midwest. Her article delves into the far-reaching implications of two energy storage summits recently convened in Minnesota.
She describes the role of energy storage in the Midwest as a case study, offering a detailed analysis of selected energy storage use cases.
Anderson said: “Although the Midwest storage market is relatively young, the MISO2 region is one of the world’s largest organized electric grids and will play a critical role for bringing energy storage to scale.”
As the FERC-regulated grid operator in the Midwest, MISO filed a plan for compliance with the Order 841 in December 2018, alongside other operators. This includes implementation details for integrating ESRs in the MISO market starting in 2020. This intervention makes this new collection of articles focusing on the Midwest particularly pertinent.
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