The commercial and industrial segment is one of the most promising sub-sectors of the energy storage space. Julian Jansen of IHS Markit describes recent efforts to model the US C&I storage landscape and what it reveals about this dynamic emerging market. As told to Andy Colthorpe.
Australia-headquartered engineering and professional services company WorleyParsons said its first EPC contract for a battery storage project in the US shows how the energy sector is moving from “mega projects” to “portfolios of smaller projects”.
PV inverter manufacturer Sungrow and energy storage system integrator / software specialist Greensmith are working on the first community solar-plus-storage project to be delivered in the US state of Massachusetts.
Oil and gas giant British Petroleum has partnered with Tesla to install a storage battery at one of its subsidiaries’ wind farms in South Dakota, US, as part of a pilot program which could see the firm further embrace battery storage.
Cypress Creek Renewables, which developed 1GW of PV projects in an 18-month stretch up to the beginning of this year, has used Lockheed Martin’s lithium-ion battery storage solutions in a dozen just-completed solar-plus-storage projects.
Projects being delivered for the University of Hawaii will allow various campus buildings to eliminate 70% to 100% of fossil fuel use as the state races towards its 100% renewables by 2045 target.
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.
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.
