Dive Summary:
- Commissioner Carla Peterman of the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has proposed a target of 1,325-gigawatt (GW) energy storage for Southern California, San Diego Gas & Electric and Pacific Gas & Electric combined by 2020. Here is a PDF of the proposed decision.
- The proposed targets target a 30%-55% increase in energy storage capacity every two years. Under the proposed decision, utilities must begin this process by December 1, 2014 and can use energy storage for many functions, including peak shaving, capacity and ancillary services.
- "This is the moment we've all been waiting for. Commissioner Peterman's historic proposed decision provides a critically-needed market signal to realize the many benefits energy storage can bring to California's ratepayers. We're certain that other states will follow California's example," said Janice Lin, executive director of the California Energy Storage Alliance, according to Market Watch.
From the article:
The 81-page proposed decision from CPUC Commissioner Carla J. Peterman breaks new ground in seeking to establish a regulatory regime in which utilities, third-party storage providers, and even customer-owned storage assets can play an integrated role. Those include rules that would limit utilities from owning more than 50 percent of the total amount of energy storage to be procured across the three “grid domains” of transmission, distribution, and customer-located storage.
That decision comes in spite of requests from the state’s three investor-owned utilities -- Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric and Pacific Gas & Electric -- that they be able to control a larger share of the storage they would be required to connect to their grids.