California Passes Huge Grid Energy Storage Mandate [View all]

[madokie]

CPUC passes controversial mandate for 1.3 gigawatts of batteries, grid storage by 2020


California’s status as the vanguard in pushing energy storage technologies onto the power grid is now official. On Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission unanimously approved its proposed mandate (PDF) that will require the state’s big three investor-owned utilities to add 1.3 gigawatts of energy storage to their grids by decade’s end.

Now comes the hard part: putting in place a complex set of regulations to guide the development of an unprecedented number of batteries, thermal energy storage and other forms of grid power and energy capture-and-release technologies, all keeping to the mandate’s requirement that they be “cost-effective.”

CPUC’s ruling comes after years of work jump-started by a 2010 state law, Assembly Bill 2514, which originally called for the statewide energy storage mandate to enable a “market transformation” for these new technologies.

Large-scale energy storage doesn’t really exist today beyond massive pumped hydro projects. But California’s aggressive renewable energy goals and greenhouse gas reduction mandates will be hard to meet without a lot more energy storage to help balance intermittent wind and solar resources while keeping the grid stable.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/california-passes-huge-grid-energy-storage-mandate