MISO Energy Storage Market Reforms Possible with Utility Complaint to FERC

February 8, 2017 in Energy Systems Author: Matt Prorok

*This is an update of a post that was originally published in December*

On October 21, 2016, Indianapolis Power & Light Company (IPL), an Indianapolis based, vertically integrated utility, filed a formal complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) against the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) under Section 206 of the Federal Power Act over what it perceives as the mistreatment of its Harding Street Station Battery Energy Storage System (HSS BESS) (Docket EL17-8). Essentially, IPL’s complaint boils down to three “asks,” with plenty of details surrounding timing, ongoing proceedings, and stakeholder input left for FERC to figure out. Continue reading »

Evaluating the Economics for Energy Storage in the Midcontinent: A Battery Benefit-Cost Analysis

July 12, 2016 in Reports & Whitepapers

Evaluating the Economics Cover

The range of benefits energy storage can provide to the electricity system are widely known among those in industry and well documented in the literature. Among these are storage’s abilities to help integrate wind and solar energy, improve grid reliability, and increase the economic efficiency of the electricity system. Despite the benefits, there has not yet been widespread deployment of energy storage. This is due to two main factors. First, there currently are not markets set up to allow storage owners to earn revenue for many of the services they provide. Second, storage technologies have historically been more expensive than alternative resources that can provide comparable services. However, both of these barriers have been easing recently. Continue reading »

GPI Renewable Energy and Energy Storage Road Trip

July 30, 2015 in Energy Systems Author: Mike Gregerson

Our week long renewable energy and storage road trip started in Denver ended in Long Beach, CA. These areas are at the center of many electricity system changes brought about by California’s drive to clean energy.

We had already visited NREL’s new Energy Facilities Integration Facility (ESIF) in Golden, CO and had good meetings with Xcel Energy and RES America regarding their work in energy storage.

We also toured the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System near Las Vegas, a 3-unit solar thermal power system based on mirror and steam tower technology capable of generating over 400MW.

We then toured the Desert Sunlight Solar PV plant near Palm Springs, CA which is a pure PV play with over 8 MILLION (yes that’s Million)  panels capable of generating over 500MW of electricity.

The only solar generating technology we were not able to visit was the parabolic mirror tube technology which uses either oil or molten salt to store heat and generate electricity. There are projects in Arizona and one being built in CA which would definitely be worth a visit in the future. We were very impressed by the openness and frankness of both tour guides at Ivanpah and Desert Sunlight and have a number of insights we will share in other blogs.

Finishing with a visit to AES

All of this leads us to AES Southland which is doing amazing things with energy storage and natural gas power plants in the Los Angeles area. We visited the AES Southland facility in Long Beach which currently has 6 older natural gas power plants. These are used as peaking power and system reserve capacity in a PPA with Southern California Edison (SCE).

AES has won several battery energy storage projects in CA with SCE along with new Combined Cycle Natural Gas power plants (CCNG). All of these facilities will be built at the Long Beach and Huntington Beach plant locations. AES plans on installing 100 MW of Samsung Lithium-Ion batteries at the Long Beach location. This battery installation will be capable of a 4 hour discharge and will work in concert with the natural gas facilities to serve SCE customers. AES is also designing the facility to hold up to 300MW of battery storage since the reaction of SCE planners has been very positive to the potential economic and reliability benefits of the battery storage units.

We were able to see a demonstration rack of batteries at the AES facility and it is truly amazing. The battery packs come in cardboard boxes the size of a stereo receiver and get put into a vertical rack, plugged into each other in groups of 8. Each group is then hooked up to the distribution collection grid with a set of plug in wires. AES said construction is literally done in hours for each rack.

We all felt that the AES people had a good handle on the future electric system requirements of this new distributed and clean energy system and we are hopeful that enough will be learned in the LA area to help other utilities, RTO’s and regulators become more comfortable with the options and benefits presented by an integrated renewable energy and energy storage system.