Pushback against the proposed Puente natural gas plant in California now hinges on whether energy storage could do the job instead.
The first whack at the question, in a study by the California Independent System Operator, found that storage could provide the needed local reliability, but at 2.7 times the cost.
A GTM analysis of CAISO’s calculations, though, found that they rely on lithium-ion cost projections from 2014, which makes them just about ancient history in terms of the fast-moving storage industry. Battery costs keep falling faster than predicted, and in 2014 the industry was barely getting started.
CAISO doesn’t have access to proprietary cost data; the grid operator’s study makes clear the numbers are more of a ballpark calculation. It’s up to the California Energy Commission to decide whether to allow NRG to build its Puente gas plant in Oxnard for 2020, or whether more up-to-date cost data on alternative solutions would be helpful.
“At a minimum, the prices assumed for energy storage and solar in the CAISO study are not reflective of today’s market for either technology,” said Shayle Kann, head of GTM Research. “It’s always hard for regulators to keep up with markets that are adapting as fast as both solar and storage are, but in particular storage costs are falling fast enough that using data from 2014 is like relying on gas prices from before the shale revolution.”
Environmentalists have rallied to squash Puente, arguing the plant perpetuates a history of Oxnard as a “sacrifice zone for polluting power plants,” even though alternatives now exist. The city itself opposes the plant and called it “expensive, obsolete before it is open” in comments on the draft of CAISO’s study.
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