The first stage of California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) flagship energy storage target will be fully procured, according to the Commissioner responsible for its implementation.
In October 2013 CPUC approved a mandate requiring the state’s three large investor-owned utilities – Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric – to procure 1.325GW of energy storage by 2020. CPUC will issue in December its first competitive solicitation for the scheme, and with 136MW up for grabs demand is expected to be strong.
However, the responses are subject to cost-benefit methodologies devised by the utilities and stakeholders. If utilities do not have enough successful bids that pass the methodologies, they have the option to defer until the next solicitation in 2016.
“I expect all [136MW] to be procured,” CPUC Commissioner Carla Peterman told BEST. “The market seems ready to respond to the solicitation at competitive prices.
“The anecdotal evidence is there will be a wealth of products that will be able to come in under the methodology,” she added, noting Southern California Edison’s solicitation earlier this year for 50MW of energy storage projects to cover reliability issues drew 500 responses.
Peterman expects the majority of the 136MW, which would be deployed in 2015, to be short-duration battery energy storage for grid reinforcement, mostly lithium-ion, deployed close to load centres and in places with network constraints.
“I expect a large share of batteries but we’re also going to need some longer duration storage projects,” she added.
Peterman said CPUC would evaluate the 1.325GW energy storage target in 2016. “We’ll look at whether we need to raise the target or lower it, and also whether we need more grid-level storage or behind-the-meter, customer storage,” she said.
The total cost of the programme is estimated at $1-3 billion.