New Regulatory TREND: Battery Storage Pipelines. 4 Regulatory options.

What does “battery storage pipeline” mean? Co-locating battery storage with renewables

Is this unique to the US? No, here’s how a battery storage pipeline connected Ireland.

What regulatory challenges do these projects present?

• increasing rapidly
  • 3x more hybrid capacity in development than the 4.6 GW now online
  • 12x times more in the pipeline
• are these hybrids part of the wholesale market?
  • awaiting regulatory decisions
• how do they fit into the current regulatory system
  • applying traditional optimization rules may not be the best approach for hybrids
  • is “the “conventional wisdom” in the power sector that storage and generation should each be optimally and independently sited is still true?
  • Two different approaches apply to the hybrid & rules need to be adjusted to make it fit. (1) Battery storage is load when it is being charged and (2) generation when it is discharging.

4 Possible regulatory solutions:

• ” asset owners bid the renewables and the storage into the wholesale market as individual resources and allow the system operator to take and schedule them as needed”
• “give the system operator control of the hybrid’s resources to use separately unless system reliability necessitates use “as a single resource”
• “managed the hybrid as a single aggregate resource by the system operator in the same way that they have been managing standalone storage”
• “allow the asset owner to bid the hybrid project as a single aggregate resource into the market”

Utility Dive | 84 GW US renewables+storage pipeline has developers anxious for market integration rules