Energy Exchange

Energy Storage in California Finally Getting Attention it Deserves

By Tim O'Connor / Published: May 11, 2010

Energy storage is gaining important and well-deserved policy attention in Sacramento due to its wide-ranging potential. Last month, Assembly Bill 2514, which focuses on energy storage, overcame a major hurdle when it passed through the rigorous Utilities and Commerce Committee.

AB 2514 is sponsored by California Attorney General Jerry Brown (front running Democratic candidate in this year’s governor’s race) and authored by Nancy Skinner (founder of ICLEI, former director of The Climate Group and one of the Legislature’s top environmental leaders).

Brown and Skinner identified an effective way to advance energy storage technologies in California. The bill calls for increasing the consideration of energy storage by requiring the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to advance a rulemaking process where storage technology is evaluated based on both the costs and the range of values it can provide. The bill requires the CPUC and utilities to look beyond ability to simply discharge energy and toward a full-scope evaluation that’s not currently performed. Utilities will then be assigned targets for installing storage technology in their service territories over the next decade.

AB 2514 has a way to go to become law, including votes on the Assembly floor and by the State Senate and State fiscal committees. If California is to meet its renewable energy portfolio standards and energy demand and cut greenhouse gas emissions, this bill should get full consideration and support.

Either way, the tide may be turning in the direction of increased energy storage. Consider:

The Cal-ISO is performing pilot testing to see how certain storage applications respond to remote signals.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) through Order 890 is also requiring system operators to allow storage providers to price in the value of the ancillary services when competing for energy market share.
Numerous large greenhouse gas emitters are buying storage to reduce energy costs and gain the benefits of storage.

These advances send a strong signal that widespread energy storage is a great idea whose time has finally come. Storage can and should be compared against the entire range of energy solutions. It should then be strategically integrated into a package of solutions designed to meet California’s ambitious clean energy and emissions reductions goals.

Posted in General / Comments are closed

After the Aliso Disaster: Less Gas Storage, More Clean Energy Through Increased Market Efficiency

By EDF Blogs / Published: February 22, 2016

By: Mark Brownstein & Tim O’Connor

The nearly four-month disaster at the Aliso Canyon storage facility owned by Southern California Gas Company has spurred widespread calls to close the sprawling underground reservoir, and cast intense scrutiny on the 13 other similar facilities around California. But others, including Governor Jerry Brown and key state agencies, say the facilities may be needed to keep the electric grid running reliably.

Ironically, one reason for dependence on this fossil fuel is California’s renewable energy boom.

As things currently stand, there aren’t enough responsive resources on the grid to simultaneously manage the large daily swings in consumer electricity demand typical in California and swings in renewable energy output due to variations in time of day and weather.

A more robust grid in combination with innovative energy storage and energy management technology will eventually reduce these swings, but may take decades to fully deploy. Until then, fast-acting gas-fired generation is necessary for balancing system operations. This has become a rallying cry for SoCalGas and the rest of California’s oil and gas industry in the wake of Aliso Canyon. Read More »

Posted in Aliso Canyon, California, General, Methane, Natural Gas / Read 2 Responses

How curbing oil and gas pollution can grow West Virginia energy leadership, create jobs and protect communities

By EDF Blogs / Published: April 7, 2023

By John Rutecki

West Virginia is the nation’s number four energy producing state and has a critical opportunity to demonstrate leadership with solutions to curb oil and gas methane emissions. Commonsense action can create jobs for West Virginians, conserve resources and protect communities.

Posted in General / Comments are closed

What DOE should consider as it makes decisions on Carbon Capture and Storage Demonstration Projects

By EDF Blogs / Published: January 20, 2023

By Jona Koka

Nearly $5 billion from the Department of Energy combined with the economic incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act represent the United States’ first major steps to building a domestic carbon management industry that supports our Paris commitments.

Posted in Air Quality, Carbon capture, General / Comments are closed

An all-inclusive way to look at energy transition in New Jersey

By EDF Blogs / Published: April 11, 2022

By Elizabeth B. Stein and Cole Jermyn

Update: On August 17^th, the BPU voted to accept the final version of the Ratepayer Impact Study. The final version has the same limitations EDF and others identified in comments on the proposed study, including not accounting for the environmental and public health benefits of the energy transition, and failing to fully account for modernized utility practices that can minimize costs such as innovative price signals and grid modernization. But even with these limitations, the final study shows that electrification is the pathway to both lower costs and less greenhouse gas pollution.

By 2030, New Jersey ratepayers who adopt electric vehicles, electrify their buildings and improve their energy efficiency will see lower energy costs than both their fossil fuel-reliant neighbor and the average customer today. This is true for small and large commercial customers, residential customers and low-income residential customers. These results should be a wakeup call to ensure all customers can afford to deploy these technologies in order to meet the state’s environmental and energy affordability goals.

New Jersey, like many other states, has been hard at work developing a strategy to drastically reduce its own climate impact. The state’s residents are already experiencing more than their share of climate change. With 130 miles of coastline, including population centers near much-loved beaches, more frequent extreme weather events are an existential threat to the state.

The state’s Energy Master Plan identifies and coordinates efforts, in various parts of the economy, to achieve a sustainable pathway to substantial decarbonization by 2050. But a new study, proposed by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, that seeks to estimate the financial impact of these efforts to eliminate fossil fuels on gas and electric utility customers, is infected with methodological flaws and faulty assumptions that would put it out of step with the state’s energy and climate policy.

Posted in Clean Energy, New Jersey / Comments are closed

4 things every utility, fleet and energy regulator should know about heavy-duty truck charging

By Pamela MacDougall / Published: March 31, 2021

The transition to electric heavy-duty trucks is upon us, sparked by a steady decline in battery costs, continuous improvements in electric truck and charging technology, and growing recognition of the climate and local air quality impact of diesel trucks. But even as household names like FedEx, PepsiCo and Amazon have made public pledges to electrify their truck fleets, concerns that charging infrastructure will be able to meet fleets’ needs cost effectively threaten to slow the market-wide transition.

A study commissioned by EDF and conducted by Gladstein, Neandross and Associates addresses these charging questions and provides a pathway to ensuring heavy duty trucks can electrify.

Posted in California, Electric Vehicles, Grid Modernization / Comments are closed