Dive Brief:
- Commercial storage provider Green Charge Networks has agreed to bring 13.3 MWh from 61 customer battery storage systems to the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) market, Power Engineering reports.
- The stored energy, contracted under Green Charge’s Power Efficiency Agreement (PEA), will allow its customers with energy storage systems ranging from 60 kWh to 2MWh to earn an estimated $150,000 – $250,000 in total extra revenue for the sale of otherwise unused stored capacity.
- This day-ahead market opportunity is an early entry in the California ISO’s effort to use aggregated, customer-sited energy storage to serve grid needs without calling on fossil fuel generation.
Dive Insight:
Customer-sited energy storage is evolving into a market reality in California.
The core Green Charge business is providing smart energy storage for the CAISO market, which allows commercial-industrial utility customers to lower peak demand usage and peak demand charges that drive up electricity bills.
Storing electricity during its least expensive periods and releasing it during higher priced peak periods allows Green Charge to both reduce customer volumetric charges and reduce their highest 15-minute period usage. That in turn lowers their peak demand charge.
Aggregated distributed behind-the-meter storage is expected to become increasingly important in stabilizing California’s grid as the penetration of photovoltaic (PV) solar increases to meet the state 50% renewables by 2030 mandate.
The PV growth is likely to result in a surplus of mid-day solar energy-generated electricity. Simultaneously, the late afternoon and early evening peak period load is likely to increase as the state’s population and its use of electricity grows.
Grid-scale and customer-sited energy storage can serve two important functions by storing the unused mid-day supply for use during the peak demand, and still meeting the demand even if it ramps up, eliminating the need for idling fast response fossil fuel generation.
