Customer Energy Storage in the Smart Grid

Customer Energy Storage in the Smart Grid

  • Energy storage resources in the customer space that can serve grid needs
  • Analysis and framework for commercial and industrial facilities and electric utilities
  • Internal and external use cases for energy storage

Facility energy storage supporting grid reliability

Many commercial and industrial (C&I) facility owners already have various forms of energy storage, including hot water tanks, natural gas supply and fuel oil tanks (for generators or heaters), ice thermal storage for building cooling, and batteries in forklift trucks and fleet vehicles. If these forms of storage could serve as grid resources, they could support increased non-dispatchable renewable energy generation and reduce transmission and distribution grid losses. What kinds of interaction between utilities and C&I customers will enable many of the energy storage resources in the customer space to serve the needs of the grid?

This paper examines various types of C&I facility energy storage, discusses how each type of energy storage can support grid reliability, presents a framework for grid interactions with the facility domain, and proposes actions to enable greater use of facility energy storage to contribute to grid reliability needs while meeting customer facility use requirements. While the focus is on C&I facilities, the principles may be applicable to residential energy storage as well.

What’s in the report

  • Facility energy storage use cases and resources
  • Types of energy storage in the facility domain
  • Parameters that might be relevant for evaluating energy storage applicability to use case requirements
  • Review of related work that classifies energy storage
  • Customer energy storage integration framework
  • Recommendations for action

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