The first energy storage project in the Midcontinent ISO is up and running, but it is not being compensated for the services it is providing in the MISO footprint.
Indianapolis Power & Light’s 20 MW, 20 MWh Harding Street storage facility went into service in May, but as valuable as those batteries may be, there is no regulatory path for IPL to get paid.
IPL is working on that problem, but it could be a heavy lift.
Late last month, IPL filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, asking the regulator to find that MISO’s rules for energy storage are deficient and should be revised.
The fast track complaint seeks three changes. IPL wants to see MISO revise its tariff for primary frequency regulation (PFR) by unbundling it and paying locational marginal prices (LMP) for the service under its own schedule. Because it is an automated function, current rules do not consider PFR to be a market operation because there is no bid and dispatch function.
The utility also wants MISO to revise its dispatch protocols for secondary frequency control. As currently designed, lithium-ion batteries wanting to participate in the MISO market would be forced to operate in a way that would degrade their batteries quicker than usual.
Those protocols were designed for flywheel storage devices, but forcing li-ion batteries to provide one hour of injection and one hour of withdrawal prevents batteries from “being used in the most valuable manner,” the filing says.
Cell life of the Harding Street battery would be reduced to three years, instead of the 10 years if it were cycled properly, IPL argues. IPL also wants to be paid, not charged, the LMP when withdrawing power from the grid in response to frequency deviations.
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