Electrical Energy Storage: A Great Business Ahead

Abstract

Energy storage is often considered being the holy grail of technologies to integrate wind and solar power. Storage has many value streams such as energy arbitrage, capacity, primary reserve or primary frequency response, secondary reserve or regulation, ramping reserve, firming and/or smoothening of various resources, spinning reserve, transmission conjunctions, and deferrals of transmission and distribution upgrades, voltage support, demand charge reduction, and bill reduction with time-of-use rates. Depending on who owns the storage system and the market, only some of these value streams may be monetizable. Yet as costs for some storage technologies such as batteries drop, and as solar and wind penetration levels increase, the commercial viability of new storage projects remains somewhat elusive, unless storage is mandated or subsidized. This paper delves into applications where storage can make economic sense and the market rules that can make or break a storage project.