This commentary is by Chad Farrell, co-CEO and founder of Encore Renewable Energy. The Vermont Senate appointed him to represent the clean energy sector on the Vermont Climate Council, and he has served on the boards of the Vermont Natural Resources Council and Renewable Energy Vermont.
In clean energy circles, energy storage is often referred to as “the bacon of the grid” in that it makes everything better. Here in Vermont, we like to think of energy storage as “the kale of the grid.”
Either way, these phrases are indicative of the importance of energy storage in an increasingly distributed and democratized grid, and it will be a critical aspect of Vermont’s clean energy transition.
As the state moves toward its goal of achieving 100% renewable energy by 2050, energy storage will play a crucial role in ensuring a stable and reliable power supply. Generating power for our homes, businesses and institutions with fuel from the sun and the wind can deliver clean, affordable and reliable energy to Vermonters, but delivering on the promise of these clean energy resources will require rapidly scaling our deployment of energy storage technologies across the state.
Creating a stable and reliable grid that delivers power when and where it’s needed — and accounts for the intermittency of when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing — can be addressed with the deployment of energy storage. Energy storage systems can store excess energy generated during hours of peak energy generation and low demand and release it during periods of low generation and high demand, effectively smoothing out fluctuations in energy supply and demand.
Energy storage can also help to improve the grid’s resilience and reduce our dependence on fossil-fuel-burning power plants. This not only benefits the environment, but also improves the security and stability of the power grid. And it also provides a valuable tool for grid operators during emergency situations.
The economic benefits of energy storage for our state and region are numerous. By reducing the need for expensive and polluting fossil-fuel power plants, energy storage systems can help to lower energy costs for consumers and businesses, and provide new opportunities for investment and job creation.
In fact, the Vermont Department of Public Service noted in a 2017 report that Massachusetts alone could yield $3.4 billion in economic value for the state from 1,766 megawatts of energy storage by 2020 (through a combination of system benefits, or cost savings to ratepayers, and market revenue to system owners).
Without a target or clear plan, to date Vermont has less than 40 megawatts of energy storage deployed and an estimated 60 megawatts of energy storage total when including projects in active development.
It is clear that energy storage is an essential component of Vermont’s clean energy transition, and that the state should take a proactive approach to its development and deployment. Allowing our neighboring states to lead on energy storage will come at a significant cost to Vermont in a number of ways.
As more storage is deployed elsewhere in New England, the cost of regional peak energy demand events falls onto states and utilities that do not utilize storage as a peak-shaving tool. In addition, energy storage, paired with renewable energy generation plants such as solar PV, can provide increased energy security for Vermonters via microgrids and islanded circuits when extreme weather and other disruptive events take out regional transmission lines.
Finally, a robust clean energy market in Vermont enabled by greater amounts of energy storage will draw additional innovative companies and good-paying jobs to the Green Mountain State. The rapid growth of local businesses such as Dynapower, Kore Solutions (formerly Northern Reliability), SunCommon, iSun and BETA only underscores the potential job market that comes with scaling our local clean energy market.
To be clear, Vermont’s innovative utilities are already engaging around the deployment of energy storage resources, with Green Mountain Power and Vermont Electric Cooperative having already delivered energy storage assets from the residential to the grid scale. And other utilities, including Vermont Public Power Supply Authority and Burlington Electric Department, are actively exploring new, larger-scale energy storage projects as well.
But for all of the reasons included above, we need to be moving at a faster pace of deployment to keep pace with our neighbors in other states within the New England ISO energy market.
Both the House and Senate have put forth legislation to accelerate energy storage deployment here in Vermont. These efforts are a critical first step toward establishing an energy storage target for Vermont and an energy storage deployment plan, sending the appropriate market signals to bring this significant economic opportunity to our state.
Vermont’s clean energy transition will not be complete without energy storage, and the state would be leaving critical investment and economic development dollars on the table should we not create a thriving energy storage marketplace.
As such, we should act now to ensure that it becomes a key part of our energy future. With its many benefits, energy storage is a key ingredient for Vermont’s future energy security, reliability and prosperity, much in the way that bacon (or kale) is for many of our favorite meals.
