Page 24 - ESJ – ENERGY STORAGE JOURNAL

COVER STORY: US STATES TO WATCH

that Aliso Canyon problem. California had
In 2010, California established the set its mandate and then had this catastro-
nation’s first energy storage target phe of the natural gas leak and it wasn’t
something they could fix in a day, so they
with the passage of AB 2514 installed a bunch of energy storage as a way
to fix that problem.”

Making the most of their SMARTs
In its Energy Storage Initiative, Massachu-
setts aims to find the most cost efficient and
effective way to make the commonwealth a
national leader in the emerging energy stor-
age market. The initiative aims to install
200MWh of energy storage by January 1,
2020 and 1GWh by 2025.
The state also has its Solar Massachusetts
Renewable Tariff, known as SMART.
“The SMART program is the successor
to their net metering program and includes
an incentive adder for any solar system that
enrols under the tariff and is paired with
storage,” says Brett Simon, a senior analyst
that are in behind-the-meter and front-of- at consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie Pow-
meter projects have to respond,” says Babi- er and Renewables who focuses on energy
nec. storage.
“So what that does is there are rules for Additionally, Massachusetts is pursuing a
utilities advising them of what’s allowable clean peak standard to reduce the amount
in terms of technology risk. of fossil fuel generation used to address sys-
“People are looking at each other to see tem peaks. Which, Simon says, is another
what’s going on. For example, in California, opportunity for storage.
for the first two or three years they had a In January, the Massachusetts Department
lot of demonstration projects, so it starts at of Public Utilities approved the state’s new
a low level. three-year energy efficiency plan. Known by
“Now that many of those demonstration many through Mass Save — its energy sav-
projects are done the floodgates can open. ing initiative — it brought energy storage,
They are not going to go from a tenth of normally in the form of residential batteries,
a gigawatt-hour to 2GWh until they have into the program.
pilot demonstrations completed. The plan made batteries eligible for state
“That happened in California and one energy efficiency incentives, a move its ad-
of things that really impressed is they had vocates believe should be considered by

Last year, storage deployment in the US grew 80% from 2017. Source: Wood Mackenzie

22 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2019 www.energystoragejournal.com