ESTAP Webinar: An Introduction to the Energy Storage Report for State Utility Regulators

Clean Energy States Alliance, Sandia National Laboratories and the U.S. Department of Energy hosted a webinar to overview a recent energy storage report, titled “Evaluating Utility Procured Electric Energy Storage Resources: A Perspective for State Electric Utility Regulators,” which provides a perspective on issues pertaining to the deployment of utility procured electrical energy storage resources.

The surge of investments in renewable energy during the last decade, particularly wind and solar energy, has stimulated interest in energy storage technologies. These technologies have the capability to balance the variability inherent in many renewable energy resources and provide a number of other critical grid services. Given this potential, their access to the regulatory process must be improved, together with the removal of barriers and use of appropriate and consistent cost benefit analysis methodologies, so that they are routinely included in the suite of options considered for providing key grid services.

The webinar featured the report’s co-authors Dhruv Bhatnagar and Verne Loose, who highlighted the key findings from the report, discussed the process by which barriers were identified and solutions developed, and then opened the floor to questions and discussion on the regulatory landscape for energy storage.

Guest Speakers:

• Dr. Imre Gyuk, Director, Storage Technology Program, U. S. Department of Energy, Office of Electricity
• Dan Borneo, Senior Electrical Engineer, Distributed Energy/Electrical Energy Storage Program, Sandia National Laboratories
• Dhruv Bhatnagar, Energy Storage & Transmission Analysis, Sandia National Laboratories
• Verne Loose, Energy Storage & Transmission Analysis, Sandia National Laboratories