Energy Storage

We believe large-scale energy storage holds untapped potential for the electric power industry and its customers.  Electric power storage technologies can cleanly and cost effectively reduce the need for new power plants and transmission lines, reduce congestion in urban areas, and improve system reliability.

Energy storage can provide both system and local benefits, depending on the scale of the technology chosen.  During peak market demand times, expensive generation units are called on to provide electricity.  These generation resources drive up the cost of energy for all consumers.  Energy storage plants can store energy generated during cheap, off-peak hours and release this cheap energy during hours of high demand.  In this way, storage can reduce the need for high cost generators and lower the price of energy for consumers. 

Utilities can install small energy storage units at substations and other strategic locations to relieve congested pockets where there is insufficient distribution capacity during peak periods.  This increases local reliability and reduces the cost of supplying electricity, especially in markets with locational marginal pricing. Since many of these pockets are located in nonattainment areas, there is also a substantial environmental benefit from not having to run inefficient generators inside these congested areas.

Electric and thermal energy storage will facilitate the addition of higher proportions of renewables into electric systems, which can help minimize the harmful effects of NOx, SOx, and other pollutants emitted by traditional fossil fuel generation sources.  Storage plants accomplish this by shifting fossil fuel generation to hours of the day when the harmful effects of the gases are minimized and efficiencies are generally the highest.

American Electric Power has made a commitment to install 100 kW of battery capacity on their systems, most likely using NGK sodium sulfur technology.  Despite the Texas law being ambiguous about the ability of T&D utilities to own storage, AEP appears to be planning a major installation to support the remote border town of Presidio, Texas, which has only one line connecting it to the ERCOT grid.  Excel recently announced it will be using the same batteries for its new wind power installations, and Acciona is using molten salts storage.  Shell and Luminant recently announced plans for a 3000 MW wind farm, which may be accompanied by compressed-air energy storage.

Good Company Associates has worked with a number of energy storage technology companies.  Clients have included a large-scale compressed air energy storage (CAES) company, a flywheel energy storage start-up, and a coalition of thermal energy storage companies organized under the American Refrigeration Institute (ARI).  In 2005 we helped pass legislation to define energy storage as an energy efficiency measure, making customer installations eligible for rebates in much of Texas.  We are today supporting the start-up of an exciting new thermal storage technology made to complement smaller scale HVAC systems for homes and businesses.  And we are working with CCET to develop one or two multi-client studies of storage in ERCOT.

Practice Areas