Description

Table of contents

Executive summary (2)

New regulations and initiatives discussed this month (5)

Americas (5)

United States (5)

Colombia (5)

Oceania (6)

Australia (6)

Project updates and announcements (7)

Overview of the 2019 market for utility-scale energy storage projects (7)

Projects announced or contracted this month (7)

Projects commissioned this month (10)

Tenders this month (12)

Focus of the month: Energy storage as a means for grid investment deferral (14)

European countries are showing remarkable interest towards storage as a non-wires alternative through multiple proactive approaches (14)

France – Both the Transmission System Operator (RTE) and the Distribution System Operator (Enedis) start experimenting congestion management with non-wire alternatives (14)

Germany – Transmission system operators launch batteries as grid boosters (16)

United Kingdom – Distribution system operators launch local flexibility markets (18)

Other major hotspots are setting a model for this new usage of energy storage (22)

Australia – High renewable penetration and lack of interconnections create a great opportunity for storage as a non-wire alternative (22)

United States – Despite its leadership, the approach towards non-wire alternatives remains a state-by-state, project-by-project affair (26)

Canada (30)

Making a case for grid congestion management with energy storage remains situation-specific (31)

Generally, replacing one MW of line capacity by one MW of battery is not an economically rational choice (31)

Specific situations have to be encountered to make the case for battery storage work (34)

Table of figures

Figure 1: PacifiCorp's solar-plus-storage expansion over the 2038 horizon (5)

Figure 2: Utility-scale energy storage projects announced/contracted and commissioned in 2018 and 2019 (ongoing)  (7)

Figure 3: Pilot GridBooster projects in Germany (16)

Figure 4: German network extension plan for 2030 displays 6 large scale batteries (version 2019) (17)

Figure 5: Benefits of the GridBoosters to the redispatch requirements in Germany (17)

Figure 6: How the GridBooster works – illustrated by TransnetBW at the Energy Storage World Forum 2019 (18)

Figure 7: Leighton Buzzard storage system deferring DNO investment – UK (19)

Figure 8: Three types of flexibility services tendered by DNOs in the UK (19)

Figure 9: WPD ENTIRE project characteristics in the East Midlands (20)

Figure 10: Results of the EOI responses of WPD in the Midlands (20)

Figure 11: The Piclo platform from UKPN shows all current tenders opened by UKPN and the requirement for each zone (21)

Figure 12: UKPN tenders for 90 MW of flexibility across its distribution network in August 2019 (21)

Figure 13: ENWL tenders 1.35 MVA of flexibility services in 3 sites to be used in case of a network abnormality (22)

Figure 14: Large-scale storage projects for grid congestion management in Australia (23)

Figure 15: Proposed options for NSW-QLD transmission line upgrade (25)

Figure 16: Map of top uptakers of energy storage as a non-wires alternative (26)

Figure 17: Top US regulatory incentives for NWAs (27)

Figure 18: Top announced projects using storage for grid congestion management and investment deferral (28)

Figure 19: Top operational projects using storage for grid congestion managemenr and investment deferral (29)

Figure 20: Eversource Energy's projects using storage as a "non-wire alternative" (30)

Figure 21: Line distance for which storage is more cost-effective than grid buildout (with a 2-hour battery) (33)

Figure 22: Line distance for which storage is more cost-effective than grid buildout (with a 4-hour battery) (33)