The government of Massachusetts released a study last Friday that lays out the costs and benefits of energy storage, setting the stage for a storage mandate that is yet to be determined.
The report concludes that 600 megawatts of storage capacity installed by 2025 would save the state’s ratepayers $800 million in system costs. Not only that, but if storage is properly located and market and policy barriers are removed, a deployment of 1,766 megawatts would optimize system benefits for ratepayers.
Plenty of researchers have modeled the value that storage and other distributed energy resources can provide for the grid. The State of Charge report, though, comes after Governor Charlie Baker signed an energy bill in August authorizing the Department of Energy Resources to set a storage target. That same department co-authored this report, marking one of the very few times when the authors of such research have the legal authority to enact their recommendations.
“These findings will be a driving force for establishing procurement goals in the state, and clearly demonstrate that the value of energy storage extends far ‘beyond the fence’ of any one system,” wrote Energy Storage Association Executive Director Matt Roberts in an email Friday.
Assuming the department follows through on its prerogative, Massachusetts will be only the third state to issue a mandate for energy storage, following California and Oregon. Since storage can provide readily available power during peak demand events, it’s useful to measure a target as a percentage of a state’s peak load. The 600-megawatt figure in the report would equate to about 5 percent of Massachusetts’ peak load, whereas Oregon’s target is 1 percent and California’s is 2 percent.
“In peak load percentage metrics, this is already a more aggressive target than the other two states,” said Ravi Manghani, energy storage director at GTM Research.
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