CPUC decision to "tear down market barriers"

October 21, 2013 | By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

The California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has unanimously passed a decision to build high-tech energy storage systems that will further enable California's renewable energy future and move the state closer to building a modern, sustainable power grid.

Long Beach, California. Credit: WPPilot/Wikimedia Commons

The decision will require power companies to expand their capacity to store energy, improving storage and delivery of renewable energy resources, reducing the need for gas-fired power plants, cutting climate change pollution, and making California's electrical grid more reliable.

According to the decision, the state's investor-owned utilities must begin buying a combined 200 MW of energy storage technology by 2014 and reach 1.3 GW (1,325 MW) by the end of 2020. This is currently the largest target in the world and is likely to increase California's installed capacity sixfold from its current 35 MW.

The PUC decision is the culmination of California Assembly Bill 2514 (AB 2514) passed in 2010 -- the first state law that solely focused on incorporating energy storage into the electrical grid.

"As we transition to a true 21st Century grid, storage will be essential to making it resilient, efficient, clean and cost-effective," said Darrell Hayslip, chair of the Electricity Storage Association.

The decision is a step toward creating a market for storage that is expected to "tear down barriers that prevent cost-effective energy storage resources from competing and providing benefits to California customers, ratepayers of California utilities," according to CPUC President Michael Peevey.

Energy storage technologies are a key enabler for renewable energy in strengthening the grid and shaving peak loads. Although only emerging as a commercially viable industry, energy storage holds a potential to change the way energy industry operates, according to Frost & Sullivan. Currently, a host of new technology solutions are on the edge of commercialization or being tested on an industrial scale, and Frost & Sullivan predicts major energy storage breakthroughs in the next two to four years.

"With the existing state of the grid, and the need to upgrade power plants, transmission and distribution infrastructure, and renewable integration, energy storage is likely to play an important role in reducing large investments" said Vishal Sapru, the Energy & Power Systems Research Manager at Frost & Sullivan.

For more:
- see the decision

http://www.fierceenergy.com/story/cpuc-decision-tear-down-market-barriers/2013-10-21