Across the country, increased energy storage deployments are being spurred by customers looking to gain more control over their energy bills and utilities aiming to build resilience and flexibility into their grid operations.
Grid flexibility has always been important, but its significance continues to grow as more and more variable generation is added to the grid — primarily in the form of wind and solar.
Storage acts as a buffer to absorb and offset the changing energy supply and demand. As a result, 431 MWh of energy storage was installed in the U.S. in 2017, and nearly three times that amount (1,233 MWh) is expected in 2018, according to GTM.
Energy storage has arrived. It’s gone from a nice-to-have to a must-have for utilities that are integrating renewables on the grid. For utilities navigating how to integrate storage into their planning, here are a few things to consider.
1. Look for grid congestion
In some parts of the grid, transmission capacity has not kept pace with growing end-user demand due to an increase in renewables and distributed energy resources. Strategically placing storage along demand-strained transmission or distribution systems can not only improve performance of these systems, but also help delay or even avoid costly upgrades.
Think of it this way — to add more capacity to a transmission system often requires a full replacement of wires and transformers to deliver more power to a node on the transmission or distribution (T&D) system. Energy storage has the ability of clipping the peak demand on that system, shown in the figure below as “overload,” allowing the existing transmission and distribution system to be used.
For example, Arizona Public Service installed a 2 MW, 8 MWh battery arrayinstead of rebuilding 20 miles of transmission and distribution lines last year. The energy storage project will delay transmission investments for three to six years and has been deemed “very, very cost-effective.”
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