Analysis: Energy storage not ready for mass use
Washington, 24 April (Argus) — Regulators and electricity market participants increasingly talk up the value and importance of energy storage technologies for renewable energy generation in key US power markets, but greater commercial application still appears to be years away.
California state utility regulators have set a 1,325MW target for energy storage procurement by investor-owned utilities in that state and are considering measures to enable even more storage capacity. The PJM Interconnection — the largest US wholesale power market — has 100MW of storage resources on line and another 500MW in the interconnection queue, according to PJM senior analyst Scott Baker.
The numbers belie a niche application for the technology. PJM is using energy storage for frequency regulation, an ancillary service used to maintain constant electric grid frequency. PJM’s current and future storage capacity is less than 1pc of total generation. And California’s current energy storage target is about 3pc of its power market.
