As more utilities, governments, and other entities propose aggressive decarbonization goals, rapid storage deployment has become essential to ensure reliability of an electric system increasingly reliant on variable energy resources. States have begun the challenging process of creating enabling policies, incentives, and compensation mechanisms to ease the transition. This evolution is both rapid and complex due to storage resources' unique situation as both consumers and providers of energy.
NARUC, with the support of the U.S. Department of Energy, provides support for its members to plan for and develop regulations and policies around storage.
NARUC staff experts who support these activities include Jeff Loiter.
NARUC Financial Toolbox Webinar: Behind-The-Meter (BTM) Storage, October 10, 2023
Customers are becoming active users and contributors to the grid via Behind-The-Meter (BTM) energy solutions, with BTM storage emerging as the latest iteration. As BTM storage grows in popularity for resilience and cost-saving benefits, among others, commissions, utilities, and developers must determine strategies as to safely and cost-effectively integrate these customer resources onto the distribution system. NARUC’s Regulators’ Financial Toolbox Webinar on Behind-The-Meter Storage featured speakers with utility, industry, and regulator experience. Panelists addressed the benefits and barriers to BTM storage; potential business and ownership models; valuation and compensation mechanisms for BTM benefits and risks; and current applications of BTM storage in utility footprints.
Innovation Webinar on Storage as a Transmission Asset, May 1, 2023
On May 1, 2023, NARUC's Center for Partnerships and Innovation hosted an Innovation Webinar exploring Storage as a Transmission Asset (SATA). Energy storage has the potential to provide a suite of services. Among those many services, Storage as a Transmission Asset uses storage facilities to inject or absorb energy to facilitate power flows on transmission lines. Used this way, SATA can provide reliability services and serve as an alternative to new transmission projects, increasing system efficiency and providing cost savings for customers. SATA can provide further services and capabilities when used as a "dual-use" asset capable of offering both generation and transmission services. Watch the recording and review the presentation below to hear subject matter experts discuss the potential of SATA and dual-use SATA, the planning and market barriers that hinder its use, and potential solutions to address these barriers.
Moderator: Chair Carrie Zalewski, Illinois Commerce Commission
Speakers:
State Commission Staff Surge Call: Equitable Access to Battery Energy Storage, April 14, 2021
The topic was inspired by a pair of reports from the Clean Energy Group on Massachusetts’ ConnectedSolutions storage incentive program, which applies energy efficiency budgets to facilitate storage deployment. On this call commission staff from Massachusetts, Vermont, and Hawaii shared their experiences facilitating the deployment of battery energy storage with a focus on how energy storage programs are serving underserved communities such as low- to moderate-income customers and residents of affordable housing communities.
NARUC is grateful to the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy for funding to support state utility regulators in these efforts.