Energy storage, or the use of batteries to absorb electricity from the grid when it is plentiful and discharge it when it is scarce, is ready for the big leagues.
That was the implication of a ruling on Friday from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that has been celebrated by renewable energy enthusiasts. A three-judge panel upheld a rule by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that requires energy storage and distributed energy sources to be able to fully participate in the nation’s major electricity markets, freeing them from rules by state regulators and utility companies that energy storage advocates say limited the technology’s potential revenue.
It wasn’t the only sign in recent days that energy storage is maturing as a power source. Yesterday California regulators announced they had connected to the grid a battery storage system of 62.5 megawatts — enough to power more than 10,000 homes and the largest such device in the country. And earlier today the U.K. government said it would allow battery storage projects to bypass a lengthy planning rules at the national level, easing the way for more development.
Analysts believe that the D.C. Circuit Court ruling could clear the way for the development of up to 50 gigawatts of energy storage, which would equal a third of the country’s current total wind and solar capacity. FERC’s chairman, Neil Chatterjee, hailed the ruling and said that the rule change FERC first published in February 2018 — known as Order 841 — “will be seen as the single most important act we could take to ensure a smooth transition to a new clean energy future.”
Any electrical grid that wants to run on 100% renewable energy — as many, including California’s and Germany’s, plausibly could do in the not-too-distant future — will need to have lots of energy storage on hand to ensure that wind- and solar-generated electricity is still available even when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t out.
Yet as these super-sized batteries grow stronger and cheaper, regulators around the world are struggling to craft rules to ease them onto the grid. In the US, energy storage units have long been prevented from fully accessing the lucrative wholesale electricity markets where power plants sell electricity and utility companies buy it. Many state regulators view energy storage skeptically despite continued technological advances.
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