While research published this week demonstrates that the US as a whole is embracing energy storage technology, with regulator FERC’s recent wholesale market ruling likely to have a “significant impact”, the picture varies greatly when looking from state-to-state, an analyst has said.
Utility Enel has been offering the reward of collaboration and testing agreements to “new technologies, architectures and control strategies” that maximise the value and effectiveness of energy storage.
ELM FieldSight has partnered with power conversion specialist Ideal Power on a number of microgrid and related projects, designing and supplying the control system that makes the system tick, balancing the different distributed energy sources plugged into it. Vice president of operations Jason Petermeier shared his thoughts on recent projects, not-so-recent projects and where microgrids are heading.
Islands are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of natural disasters such as hurricanes. John Merritt of Ideal Power looks at some of the emerging solutions to building more resilient energy systems through the deployment of microgrids that combine multiple energy generation and storage technologies.
A project in Jamaica, pairing utility-scale solar with battery energy storage at a microgrid could become “a model for other countries in the Caribbean and beyond”, the head of the country’s main utility has said.
The “devil is in the detail” when it comes to making regulatory changes in the US to open up wholesale markets for energy storage to participate in, a regional chief of regulator FERC has said.
San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), one of California’s three main investor-owned utilities (IOUs), said this week that it will add resilience and backup capabilities to public sector buildings through the procurement of “up to 166MW” of energy storage.
While energy storage system price declines have slowed down in recent times in the US, standardisation of design and engineering will be among the key drivers in bringing down balance-of-system hardware and EPC costs.
Nonprofit utility Platte River Power Authority has issued a request for proposals (RfP) for at least 20MW of solar PV systems and up to 5MWh of battery energy storage for its power mix in Colorado.
