California Expected to Exceed 2020 Goals for Energy Storage
California’s energy suppliers continue to make great strides toward exceeding their state-mandated 2020 procurement goals for energy storage.
As of early August, California’s three largest investor-owned utilities (IOUs) have procured or are seeking approval to procure almost 1,500 megawatts (MW) related to Assembly Bill 2514 requirements. Of this total, 332 MW are on-line, according to the latest tracking progress report from the California Energy Commission. Under this law, IOUs must procure more than 1,300 MW by 2020.
The state’s publicly owned utilities (POUs) also are advancing energy storage. State POUs have installed 59 MW of energy storage through 2017 and plan to procure an additional 224 MW by 2021.
“With record heat continuing to strike California, electricity demand soaring and the threat of climate change present today, we must find ways to not only produce but store more clean energy,” said Energy Commission Chair Robert B. Weisenmiller. “Innovative energy storage helps take advantage of clean energy, especially from the sun and wind.”
An example of the state’s energy storage progress is a 30-MW lithium-ion battery storage facility in San Diego County, heralded as the world’s largest. San Diego Gas & Electric Company contracted with AES Energy Storage to build the Escondido facility, which is capable of storing up to 120 megawatt-hours of energy, enough to serve 20,000 customers for four hours. Repurposed lithium-ion batteries that were used in electric vehicles have the potential to be an important source of batteries in the electricity sector at reduced cost.
Furthermore, community choice aggregators – entities formed by municipalities to buy or develop electricity on behalf of their residents, businesses, and municipal accounts – and other electric service providers must procure energy storage equivalent to 1 percent of their 2020 annual peak load under a 2013 California Public Utilities Commission decision.
California’s electric-service providers use various types of energy storage applications. Pumped storage (also referred to as “pumped hydro”) is the dominant utility-scale electricity storage technology in the state and worldwide.
Energy storage technologies such as batteries, flywheels, compressed air, pumped storage, and thermal energy can collect renewable energy from sources like solar, wind, and water when production exceeds demand. Later, the renewable generation may be injected into the grid when needed.
