50 Gigawatts of Energy Storage Is Possible, Study Says
David Wagman | February 23, 2018
Source: Energy Information Administration
Economists at consulting firm The Brattle Group say that the potential for energy storage in the United States could grow to 50,000 megawatts (MW) over the next decade. To hit that target, storage costs need to continue to decline and state regulatory policies will need to build on the recently issued FERC Order 841 to remove barriers that prevent storage resources from realizing multiple value streams.
The Brattle study estimates that at least half of the total value that storage can provide would be achievable in wholesale electricity markets. The rest would accrue at the transmission and distribution (T&D) and customer level.
The study says that the FERC's order on wholesale market reforms will have to be matched with similar efforts at the state regulatory level. Combining the FERC policy with state-level initiatives could increase its market potential by three to five times compared to a scenario that limits storage to capturing only wholesale market benefits.
The FERC voted 5-0 in mid-February to remove what it said were barriers to the participation of electric storage resources in the capacity, energy and ancillary services markets operated by regional transmission organizations and independent system operators.
In a November 2016 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR), the Obama-era commission said that market rules designed for traditional generation resources can create barriers to entry for emerging technologies such as electric storage resources.
The electric power industry has installed about 700 MW of utility-scale batteries on the U.S. electric grid, according to the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration.
As of October 2017, these batteries made up about 0.06 percent of U.S. utility-scale generating capacity. Another 22 MW of batteries were planned for the last two months of 2017, with 69 MW more planned for 2018.
Transformative Technology
"There are important, but narrow, applications in which storage is already cost effective today," says Judy Chang, a Brattle principal and co-author of the study. "We are not quite there yet, but as costs decline further, storage will be transformative for the power industry."
The study, "Getting to 50 GW? The Role of FERC Order 841, RTOs, States, and Utilities in Unlocking Storage's Potential," is available for download.
Is it 50 GW-hrs? Power = Energy / Time or Energy = Power * Time
Never mind the extrapolation of that hockey stick graph to 50 GW(-hrs) presumably over the next decade.
Unfortunately, the link on the Brattle website to the PDF of the study is dead so there is way to know how they were going to explain the extrapolation of 0.7 GW(-hrs) today to 50 GW(-hrs) ten years from now.
Any analysis of the production of raw materials to make all these 'batteries'? Or whatever energy storage medium? And the extrapolation of cost reduction?
Or is this analysis simply looking at the regulatory structure and an assumed reduction in cost of storage? Even Moore's Law eventually ran out of gas.
It's no wonder why I have such high esteem for economists.
Two of the four authors have PhD's. Three of the four authors have at least a bachelor's level degree in electrical engineering or higher.
In reply to #1
But, removing regulatory barriers to energy storage must be a good thing? Even if it's ahead of the curve?
In reply to #2
You would think, unless reliance upon energy storage suddenly places us in a situation where the grid reliability goes down, i.e. if the available storage isn't enough to cover the loads long enough to bring more baseload on line. South Australia is showing the world many lessons for those who are actually paying attention.
In reply to #2
That depends on what regulations need to be removed, as well as your definition of 'good thing'.