SEIA: Reliability Requires More Distributed Energy Storage
Image courtesy of Chris Hunkeler under Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic Deed, resized to 700 x 391 pixels.
According to a whitepaper published by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the U.S. needs to dramatically increase the number of distributed energy storage installations being developed in order to ensure electric reliability in the future.
The association claims this is necessary to counteract increasing demand and consumption while also incorporating more renewable energy sources into the generation mix.
Landscape of Distributed Energy Storage Across the U.S.
The country currently has approximately 500,000 distributed energy storage installations and about 83 GWh of total energy storage capacity. Unfortunately, the SEIA claims this is not nearly enough. In fact, the group is calling for a 20-fold increase in the number of installations (to an eye-popping 10 million), and an 8-fold increase in related capacity (to 700 GWh) by the year 2030!
Whether that level of growth is feasible or not remains to be seen. That said, it is likely that the U.S. needs more energy storage than is currently planned, as this seems necessary to help meet clean energy goals while at the same time meeting the expected growth in demand from data centers and similar power-hungry facilities and technologies.
Overall, most distributed energy storage installations in the U.S. are utility-scale deployments. The SEIA report recommends 20% of all new installations be distribution-connected residential, commercial and community segments, with 80% being utility-scale transmission-connected installations.
According to the paper, the key factor that will make or break the recommendation for 2030 is regulatory. This includes making permitting processes faster and more efficient, providing additional avenues for funding and financing including tax credits, and changing the way these systems are valued in terms of contributing to grid capacity.
In the final analysis, I do not believe the SEIA recommendation is feasible without some wholesale changes at the federal and state government level. That said, it’s clear the U.S. needs more distributed energy storage installations than what is currently planned, it’s just a matter of how much can be done and how quickly…and of course, who pays.
