A number of executives within the vitality business have spoken with POWER in current months about how utility-scale solar energy tasks profit from the addition of vitality storage. Many have famous how putting in storage techniques alongside photo voltaic arrays helps the combination of renewable vitality to the facility grid, and in addition enhances the financial potential of any such undertaking.
Mike Toomey, director of storage improvement at Denver, Colorado-based Redeux Power, a utility-scale photo voltaic and storage improvement firm, offered POWER with perception about his group’s aims. Redeux works on greenfield and brownfield tasks, serving to builders with land acquisition, undertaking engineering, interconnection, allowing, energy offtake, financing, and group engagement. Toomey has greater than 14 years of expertise within the renewable vitality business, together with seven in vitality storage improvement, origination, coverage, technique, and development.
Toomey has labored immediately and contributed to NextEra Power Assets, Recurrent Power, and Tesla, beginning utility-scale vitality storage improvement within the U.S. each as standalone and built-in photo voltaic photovoltaic (PV)-plus-storage tasks. Toomey additionally has served on the board of the California Power Storage Alliance and Interwest Alliance to advertise the adoption of storage and renewables all through the western U.S.
Toomey in his function at Redeux is liable for the go-to-market technique for storage functions and improvement of standalone storage tasks in goal markets. He works with Redeux’s improvement workforce to information the vitality storage parts of photo voltaic photovoltaic-plus-storage tasks all through the U.S.
POWER: What are the main tendencies you’re seeing within the solar-plus-storage market?
Toomey: One main pattern is the shift away from DC-tied solar-plus-storage to predominantly AC-tied. This is because of a number of causes, however the largest issue is the passing of the IRA (Inflation Discount Act) permitting for storage to take part out there immediately with out the earlier charging restrictions for tax credit score eligibility. The extra advantages of a near-fully versatile storage system collocated with photo voltaic outweigh the seize of clipped photo voltaic era. This pattern can even be recognizable as the dimensions of storage co-located with photo voltaic will increase proportional to the photo voltaic undertaking, as much as and exceeding 100% of photo voltaic nameplate. This not solely maximizes the prevailing interconnection, but additionally offers better draw back safety from financial curtailment of the photo voltaic facility.
POWER: Will there be progress in solar-plus-storage exterior of utility-scale tasks (i.e., residential or business/industrial functions)?
Toomey: Sure, with the extension of tax credit for photo voltaic, we count on to see extra deployments within the distributed area. As market charges dictate, photo voltaic will create a mini “duck curve” for the person system proprietor, including justification so as to add storage to mitigate the demand expenses that are actually a shorter, extra predictable interval within the day.
POWER: Are there battery applied sciences that can be used as a substitute for (or different to) lithium-ion?
Toomey: As the necessity for length extends past 4 hours into six to eight hours, we count on to see extra functions of different storage applied sciences starting from circulation, compressed air and non-lithium BESS (battery vitality storage system) applied sciences like zinc-air. Nevertheless, demand from utilities and markets haven’t introduced these applied sciences to the forefront. Regardless of some firms proving their know-how in business functions, deployments stay largely within the “pilot” stage. We count on that pattern to proceed into 2023, with solely a handful of tasks seeing contracting success in comparatively small dimension functions.
POWER: How vital is including storage to a photo voltaic (or different renewable vitality) undertaking in terms of grid integration and ancillary companies?
Toomey: Until integration expenses are particularly attributed to a undertaking, integration won’t be a major driver. Nevertheless, storage is a constraint mitigant. If there are financial or bodily causes that energy can’t be transmitted from photo voltaic era, storage will enhance reliability and maximize manufacturing of the prevailing gear. Initiatives with out storage can be liable to future curtailment because the push for extra renewables saturates markets. As an investor or developer, storage could be considered as permitting an extra photo voltaic undertaking to be “built-in” into an in any other case unfriendly (learn: congested) photo voltaic surroundings.
In each wholesale market within the U.S., the ancillary service market is a fraction of the era wants and can be saturated within the coming couple of years. Nevertheless, storage will proceed to be added at renewable era services for the explanations outlined above.
POWER: What are the associated fee benefits to having storage adjoining to a photo voltaic farm, versus a standalone storage system?
Toomey: The biggest financial savings by co-locating storage with a photo voltaic farm comes within the type of shared improvement and gear prices. A standalone storage undertaking would want to undergo separate allowing, interconnection filings, and in lots of circumstances a pricey transformer. By incorporating with photo voltaic, the price of storage is lowered to land, which is essentially de minimis in comparison with the land necessities of photo voltaic, and the gear prices as much as and together with medium voltage.
Financial savings are additionally realized within the type of marginal value of renewable vitality. As curtailment danger will increase, each extra photo voltaic undertaking that enters operations will turn into much less environment friendly than the final, rising the associated fee to provide every MWh. This profit could be realized by way of standalone storage techniques, however they’d must be situated in an space unconstrained from receiving photo voltaic era. Given the danger of discount already famous, we count on investments in photo voltaic to not go away such a situation as much as probability and incorporate storage immediately on the web site, leaving nothing to probability.
As utilities proceed to get extra comfy with vitality storage on their techniques, we’re seeing an growth of acceptable functions. Storage is now being thought-about an choice to mitigate transmission and distribution upgrades. As that pattern evolves, we could even see situations the place photo voltaic is co-located with storage transmission property to keep away from the necessity to cost from the grid below extra excessive constraint situations.
For any or the entire above to come back to fruition, coverage will play a vital function. Storage coverage is slowly catching up with storage improvement and may typically play a task in limiting storage markets. Policymakers and utilities acknowledge the worth of storage however are sometimes constrained by legacy coverage designed for era and reliability. Extra storage can be wanted as we enhance photo voltaic and wind on all techniques–storage coverage can be an space the place markets will both constrain or speed up storage improvement.
—Darrell Proctor is a senior affiliate editor for POWER (@POWERmagazine).
