Energy Assurance Study: Interim Report - Southwest Florida ...

Facilitate and encourage distributed energy storage capacity.StrategyEncouraging and facilitating distributed energy storage willincrease energy assurance by reducing downtime followingoutage or supply disruption events. Distributed energy storageseeks to improve energy capacity and responsiveness byadvancing power distribution and providing greater holdingpotential. The goal of energy storage is to develop advancedenergy storage systems and technologies. A strategy such asthis could potentially mitigate a large proportion of losses dueto high magnitude electrical supply disruptions.Hospitals and large food storage facilities already maintainemergency generators to provide power during large outageevents. In this case, the energy storage unit is the fossil fuelthat powers the generator, which is often the diesel fuel thatpowers the generator. This strategy refers more to distributedenergy storage as storage of electrical energy, as supplied by theutility, or possibly on-site renewable energy technologies. Thiselectricity would likely be stored in battery banks, and wouldbe able to power critical equipment for some time followingan outage event, depending on the size of the system.Aside from being extremely useful in terms of energy assurance,this strategy could also potentially increase energy resiliencyduring non-emergency conditions. For instance, smart gridtechnology allows these battery banks to charge up at night,and then during peak loads the battery banks can help offsetpeak energy usage. This would reduce costs on the utility aswell as the customer, by avoiding extra peak load generationoperation and costs. Currently, such a program is being implementedin parts of Australia, particularly those areas that havetiered energy pricing.This strategy would be particularly effective if paired with smartgrid technology, allowing utilities to control, at least partially,the operation of the distributed energy storage equipment. Ifstrategies encouraging local energy generation, particularlythrough renewable energy technologies, interconnection andtie-in protocols, and tiered energy pricing are also involved, thenthe utility of distributed energy storage is greatly enhanced. Ascenario such as this could lead to significant financial incentivesto the consumer, and possibly to utilities as well.Distributed energy storage could also be facilitated by strategiessuch as a Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program orother incentive programs. It would also be important to get theutility providers’ support for such a strategy. Mutually beneficialterms would provide the best incentive for both parties.This type of strategy would be best implemented on a statewidelevel. Regional implementation may be effective, provided utilitycooperation exists, and regulatory barriers are minimized. Astechnologies and industries develop, distributed energy storagewill become an increasingly effective way for managing theintermittent nature of renewable energy technologies and theENERGY ASSURANCE STUDY | 75