Google News Feed

U.S. Doubled Advanced Energy Storage in Five Years

April 3, 2015

Advanced energy storage has doubled in the United States over the last five years, growing from 160 MW to 350 MW, according a report today by the Energy Information Administration.

Elisa Wood

Advanced energy storage has more than doubled in the United States over the last five years, growing from 160 MW to 350 MW, according a report today by the Energy Information Administration.

The figures do not include conventional pumped hydroelectric storage, which accounts for 98 percent of electric storage in the U.S. Instead, the report focuses on up-and-comers: compressed air, batteries, and flywheels. Battery storage, in particular, is often included in microgrids.

The EIA noted that U.S. wholesale power markets are beginning to provide a revenue source for advanced storage. Energy storage can sell into certain ancillary services markets. These markets help the electric grid maintain frequency on a second-to-second or minute-to-minute basis or cover sudden and unexpected gaps between supply and demand.

Several Federal Energy Regulatory Commission orders have helped foster these markets.

Order No. 755 (2011) improves compensation rates in wholesale electric markets for fast-responding resources
Order No. 784 (2013) adds a requirement for utilities to account for the speed and accuracy of regulation resources (which help balance power system load and generation within minutes) when they determine reserve requirements. The order also requires utilities to report financial and operational information on energy storage assets.
Order No. 792 (2013) amends an earlier rule to include energy storage technologies and to streamline the time and cost associated with interconnecting new energy resources.

EIA also highlighted state policy that is promoting energy storage, such as California’s mandate that utilities secure 1.3 GW of energy storage by 2020 and New York’s Reforming the Energy Vision. Some utilities also are pushing energy storage, including Hawaiian Electric Co. (HECO), which issued a solicitation last year for 60-200 MW of storage and Oncor Electric Delivery, which has proposed that 5 GW of storage be installed in Texas.

Still, as MicrogridKnowledge.com recently noted here, government has generally been slow in crafting policy for the fast moving energy storage market.

Track markets and policies for energy storage and microgrids. Sign up for the Microgrid Knowledge Newsletter. It’s free.

About the Author

Elisa Wood | Editor-in-Chief

Elisa Wood is an award-winning writer and editor who specializes in the energy industry. She is chief editor and co-founder of Microgrid Knowledge and serves as co-host of the publication’s popular conference series. She also co-founded RealEnergyWriters.com, where she continues to lead a team of energy writers who produce content for energy companies and advocacy organizations.

She has been writing about energy for more than two decades and is published widely. Her work can be found in prominent energy business journals as well as mainstream publications. She has been quoted by NPR, the Wall Street Journal and other notable media outlets.

“For an especially readable voice in the industry, the most consistent interpreter across these years has been the energy journalist Elisa Wood, whose Microgrid Knowledge (and conference) has aggregated more stories better than any other feed of its time,” wrote Malcolm McCullough, in the book, Downtime on the Microgrid, published by MIT Press in 2020.

Twitter: @ElisaWood

LinkedIn: Elisa Wood

Facebook: Microgrids