Energy Storage News

Until recently, battery energy storage has largely served markets at the margin, offering short bursts of frequency regulation or light pricing arbitrage. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), however, utility-scale storage is about to leap forward in the U.S. The growth is being driven not just by falling storage costs, but also continuous price drops for clean generation. Forecasters largely missed this emerging dynamic. Although storage’s progress down the cost curve has historically been slower, whole system costs have continued to fall as wind and solar became the cheapest form of generation.

The largest wind and solar developer continues to grow, with projects paired with storage as it reaches 5.3 GW of contracted solar projects. And it’s making good money at the same time. In its third-quarter results, NextEra’s presence in the solar market is bigger than ever. Development subsidiary NextEra Energy Resources added 747 MW of solar contracts and 341 MW of battery storage to its backlog, almost all of which is in the post-2020 time frame.

In a deal spanning 20 projects, seven states, two power markets and more solar than the entire state of Florida has installed to date, ACCIONA has agreed to a deal with Tenaska to acquire 3 GW of utility-scale solar and 1 GW of co-located solar and energy storage. Specially, ACCIONA envisions commissioning eight projects by the end of 2023, adding around 1.5 GW of peak capacity to its North American renewable energy portfolio.

The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) has approved a 316 MW / 2528 MWh (that’s 8 hours!) energy storage facility to “provide peak capacity, energy, and ancillary services in New York City while enhancing grid reliability”. Ravenwood Development (owners of the current gas plants at the site) plans to build out the project in three phases – 129 MW, 98 MW and then 89 MW – with the first phase complete by March 2021. If they deploy all 2.5 GWh of energy storage, they will demolish 16 existing gas peaker plants, only two of which are currently running.

Energy storage is a sector marked by continuous technological development – and given the challenges created by our rapidly transforming energy systems, it needs to be. But how do innovations move from idea to reality? Specifically, what kind of environments are needed to nurture new technologies and approaches, and how do they interact with existing supports?

Community Choice Aggregator (CCA) East Bay Community Energy (EBCE) has announced two power purchase agreements with an average price of 2.2¢/kWh. While the exact pricing on either of the two projects was withheld, it is probable both of these projects have set pricing records for the United States.

Alabama Power is about to join the big leagues for solar + storage. Earlier this month the Southern Company subsidiary asked state regulators for permission to procure power from 400 MW of solar and energy storage, along with plans to add new gas turbines to existing plants, acquire a new plant and enter into a new contract for more gas.

Autonomous Energy Grids is the name of a multifaceted project that the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has created to envision the electricity grid of the future, where output from many decentralized energy sources is managed simultaneously to ensure a secure and consistent energy supply. The concept is focused on smart technology and autonomous communication, based on a series of interconnected microgrids, which communicate with each other and make use of algorithms to continually find the best operating condition in response to constantly shifting energy demand, availability and pricing.

In a few weeks, municipal utilities and electric cooperatives in the state of Texas will have legal confirmation on their right to own energy storage facilities that sell energy or ancillary services, while not having to register as an energy generator. Current policy in the state defines energy storage as a generation asset, which requires owners to register as power generators.

Today the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources unveiled the latest program design for its visionary Clean Peak Standard, a policy that builds on its renewable energy programs with the aim of more directly meeting the actual demands of the state’s electricity system.

Significant expansion in energy storage markets is poised to occur against a backdrop of regulatory changes in federal and state incentive programs, cost improvements and advances in monetization of energy storage. These current and anticipated trends affecting the U.S. energy storage market will have a significant influence on how industry participants choose when, where and how to invest in and develop energy storage technology.

The City of Glendale, California has released a plan to replace all but one of the plant’s existing generation facilities with a mix of battery storage, distributed solar and geothermal energy. Broken down by capacity, the plan calls for a 75 MW, 300 MWh battery energy storage system, up to 50 MW of distributed solar projects, energy efficiency and demand response programs. The plan also calls to keep the “peaker” portion of the former plant, which totals 93 MW of gas generation from up to five combustion turbines.

On Sunday a cable failure took the largest power plant on the island of Kaua’i in Hawaii offline, which led to cascading failures in other oil-fired and hydro power plants, leading to a 2+ hour blackout for the island’s 66,000 residents. Despite work on the Port Allen oil-fired power plant continuing and still waiting on parts to repair the Kapaia oil-fired power plant which started it all, the Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) did not have to implement further rolling blackouts on Tuesday. This was in part due to the contributions of solar and storage.

While heat-related grid disruptions hit New York City, Consolidated Edison Company (ConEd) and its subdiriary, Orange and Rockland Utilities (O&R), have issued a Request for Proposals for Bulk Energy Storage Scheduling and Dispatch Rights for 310 MW of of front of the meter energy storage. 300 MW / 4 Hours+ of the volume will be deployed in ConEd territory, while 10 MW will be deployed on O&R. The project must be operation by December 31, 2022 and are eligible for a New York State Energy Research and Development Authority Incentive.

AES has broken ground on a 100 MW / 400 MWh battery storage system in Long Beach, California that will feed the Southern California Edison (SCE) region in a 20 year power purchase agreement. The facility was specifically procured to provide power at peak times of the day, offer local capacity and ramping/ancillary services. Construction is expected to complete by the end of 2020, and will complement a new air cooled 1 GW gas facility that is replacing an older ocean cooled system.

NV Energy is making major plays in response to Nevada’s recently-raised RPS, as the company announced today that it will be purchasing power from three massive projects, totaling 1.2 GW of solar and 590 MW of battery storage.

The Hawaiian Electric Industries, the parent company of Hawaii’s investor-owned utilities, has officially kicked off the second phase of its renewable energy procurement agreement, whose roots date back to 2017. Of the Hawaiian Islands, phase 2 procurement focuses on Oahu, Maui and Hawaii, with the former two given clear renewable generation and battery storage targets.

NextEra’s 2019 Investor Presentation is 235 slides of deep information showing the forward-looking business plans of multiple business units. These include large volumes of solar, wind, storage and transmission – as well as ideas and projections on how these technologies will evolve over the next five-plus years.

Last week, one of the largest solar and battery projects in the world just got one step closer to approval. On Friday the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released the draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for the colossal Gemini Solar Project, a behemoth planned for 11 square miles of the Nevada desert northeast of Las Vegas. The paperwork shows few exact details of the project, however it notes that there has been an upgrade to the scale of the battery storage component, with a mammoth 531 MW / 2125 megawatt-hour (MWh) battery planned accompany the 690 MWac of solar that will be deployed.

The New York State Energy Research & Development Agency (NYSERDA) and the New York State Department of Public Service (DPS) have put forth $280 million worth of incentives for energy storage in two programs: one for “retail” systems smaller than 5 MW, and a Bulk Storage program for larger systems.

U.S. Representative Mike Doyle (D-Pennsylvania) has introduced a bill that would extend the federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) to energy storage installations, anywhere from the home to grid level. The bill would move beyond current provisions that enable the ITC only for solar-paired battery systems.