crtoca

Alternative Energy Storage: Why Frequency Regulation Is Important

You mention the need to place regulation resources in selected service areas. However, the various regulated grid operators - Independent System Operators (ISO) - like the California ISO (CAISO) - maintain markets that pay generators to provide frequency regulation, and there is no limitation or advantage on location for this service. Although it should make sense to place an energy storage system at the location of a frequency problem, like a wind farm, the current system allows the farms to push all their energy, and grid instability issues, into the larger grid. The ISO then buys frequency regulation services to manage the entire grid. The ISO accepts FR service from any generator in the larger grid, regardless of location.

Also, I disagree with your assertion that batteries, etc., don't have the "brute capacity" of compressed air or pumped hydro. It seems to me that a 100 MW battery system should have the same capacity as a 100 MW compressed air or pumped hydro system (although some would argue that the fast response from advanced energy storage devices would allow for smaller capacity systems providing superior service). Advanced Energy Systems (AES) can be scaled up to any size or distributed where needed. Compressed Air Energy Systems (CAES), which only exist in a couple of locations, and pumped hydro, sound great on a drawing board, but have such geographically restrictive requirements that they are of only limited potential value.