Tag Archives: energy storage

U.S. Battery Storage Nears Tipping Point, Drives Energy Transition

Merriam Webster defines tipping point as “the critical point…beyond which a significant and often unstoppable effect or change takes places.”

While by definition it is impossible to identify a tipping point as it is happening, developments over the past several weeks certainly seem to be pushing the electric power storage industry to or past that landmark. In a couple of years, the last couple of weeks may stand out as the point when storage morphed from being an interesting add-on to an essential piece of the grid, providing backup power, smoothing variable generation and participating in various other ancillary markets.

This transition is projected in the latest forecast from the Energy Storage Association and GTM Research. In their Q1 review (executive summary is available here), they project that annual storage installations in the United States will jump from just 215 megawatts in 2017 to more than 3.3 gigawatts by 2023. Just as telling, AES, which has partnered with Siemens in a storage joint venture dubbed Fluence, said in a presentation (available here) accompanying its annual results that it expected the global market to hit 28 GW of installed capacity by 2022—a tenfold increase in five years.

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Energy Storage Industry
 Takes Huge Strides
 To Commercial Viability

The country’s nascent energy storage industry had much to be thankful for in November—a record-shattering procurement announcement by Southern California Edison, active discussion in Texas of a monumental storage proposal, and two large Illinois projects that are slated for commercial operation sometime next summer.

SCE said in early November that it planned to purchase 261 megawatts of energy storage resources for use in its Los Angeles-area service territory. That total pales in comparison to the 1,382 MW of new gas-fired capacity the utility announced the same day (all part of its plan to replace the baseload capacity it lost when the 2,150 MW San Onofre nuclear power plant was shuttered in January 2012), but as Colin Cushnie, SCE’s vice president for energy procurement and management pointed out when the winners were announced, “This procurement effort…marks the first time SCE has contracted with energy storage projects through a competitive solicitation.”

And, while small in overall terms, the California Energy Storage Alliance noted that the SCE announcement represents the “largest grid-connected energy storage purchase in U.S. history.”

Continue reading Energy Storage Industry
 Takes Huge Strides
 To Commercial Viability

Green Mountain Power Embraces The Future

It’s a small project, but Green Mountain Power’s new $10 million solar/storage project in Rutland, VT, could have a big impact—both in Vermont and throughout the electric utility industry.

The project initially was designed as a simple 2 MW PV farm, and is GMPstill called the Stafford Hill Solar Farm, but it has morphed into much more than that. The facility now includes 4 MW of battery storage and islanding capability, and is being touted by the Energy Department as the first of what it hopes will be many “resilient microgrid projects’’ nationwide designed to help utilities and consumers alike cope with the probability of more, and more severe storms and other grid disruptions in the years ahead.
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