Regulations and utility processes create key barriers to energy storage development. Other hurdles are technology challenges, high capital costs and the unresolved issues of what price to put on storage benefits, who pays for it and who owns it, according to speakers at an April 28 California Energy Commission storage workshop. “This is a policy-driven market at the present time, rather than a value-driven market,” said Byron Washom, University of California, San Diego. “The common refrain that we’ve heard is that we have a regulatory system that’s designed to meet more conventional means of supplying energy and doesn’t necessarily favor--and in some cases will disfavor--energy storage, which may be able to compete were the regulations designed in a different way,” added UC Berkeley research fellow Ethan Elkind. Among the regulatory considerations floated during the workshop to help alleviate energy storage constraints were: -Having the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission create classes of energy storage assets; -Unbundling California Independent System Operator ancillary services to give energy storage technology manufacturers and developers the ability to bid on those ancillary services; -Having the California Public Utilities Commission establish a resource adequacy value to incentivize contracts with energy storage developers; and -Establishing a method for energy storage value to be reimbursed to providers, possibly involving a cost-methodology analysis. Elkind said that CPUC standardized contracts for customer-provided storage might help streamline and add certainty to the process. Implementation of legislation, AB 2514, that requires utilities to create storage systems is in the works, according to Michael Colvin, energy advisor to CPUC commissioner Mark Ferron.
