Renewable energy developers, grid planners, and utility analysts are tasked with ensuring this integration is not just efficient, but also reliable. This is where Hosting Capacity Analyses (HCA), paired with modernized interconnection procedures, are pivotal to this effort, but also, the BATRIES (Building a Technically Reliable Interconnection Evolution for Storage) toolkit provides a comprehensive roadmap for updating interconnection rules, addressing both technical and regulatory challenges, and establishes ESS interconnection best practices.
Why Is HCA So Important in Grid Modernization?
Hosting Capacity Analyses are advanced tools that map the distribution
grid’s ability to accommodate new distributed energy sources like solar and storage, but without costly upgrades or concerns about its reliability.
By understanding available capacity and pinpointing grid constraints at a more granular level, HCA’s empower stakeholders to make data-driven decisions about where and how to site new projects.
This sense of transparency reaps a whole heap of benefits, including:
- Streamlining project development.
- Reducing overall uncertainty.
- Accelerating the integration of renewable resources.
For grid planners and utility analysts, HCAs provide a clear picture of the distribution system’s real-time hosting ability. For developers, HCA’s reveal optimal interconnection points, minimizing delays and reducing costs associated with grid upgrades.
What Are the Barriers to Storage Interconnection?
Despite energy storage being deployed at an accelerated level, many interconnection procedures remain rooted in outdated assumptions and practices. Common barriers include:
- Interconnection rules that do not explicitly address ESS, which can result in confusion and delays.
- Overly conservative modeling practices that assume maximum export from storage regardless of the real operating profiles.
- Inadequate recognition of export control technologies, which can limit or prevent grid export.
- A lack of clear standards for evaluating export and operating schedules.
- Limited transparency relating to the grid constraints and available hosting capacity.
These challenges cause a whole heap of problems, including higher costs, but more critically, missed opportunities for leveraging the unique flexibility of storage capabilities.
How the BATRIES Toolkit Addresses Critical Barriers
The BATRIES toolkit, developed by a coalition of industry experts and supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, directly addresses these challenges. The toolkit identifies and provides solutions for eight key barriers to ESS interconnection:
- The explicit inclusion of ESS in the rules, as many jurisdictions lack clarity on how existing interconnection rules apply to storage. The toolkit recommends updating terminology and application forms, ensuring ESS is clearly addressed throughout the process.
- Recognition of export control methods, so utilities can evaluate limited and non-export systems based on realistic operating assumptions rather than worst-case scenarios, is done by allowing certified export control utilities to conduct the evaluation.
- A realistic evaluation of non- and limited-export systems, which reflects actual system operation, and reduces unnecessary grid upgrades.
- Addressing and establishing uniform specifications for export control response times to ensure that any brief unintended exports are managed safely and consistently.
- Transparent grid information through utilities publishing HCA results, enabling developers to identify optimal interconnection points and avoid redundant studies.
- Applicants should be allowed to modify system designs during the review process to address identified grid impacts, reducing project cancellations and delays.
- Updating technical standards, such as incorporating the latest national standards like IEEE 1547-2018 into interconnection procedures, ensures safety, reliability, and consistency.
- Evaluating operating schedules and ensuring clear processes for reviewing and approving ESS operating schedules, leverages storage flexibility to maximize grid hosting capacity.
Adopting the toolkit’s recommendations can dramatically improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the interconnection process. Best practices include:
- Using HCA’s to guide project siting and interconnection queue management.
- Implementing standardized technology-neutral export control protocols.
- Ensuring interconnection rules reflect the operational flexibility of ESS.
- Providing clear, accessible information on the capacity and constraints of grids.
Conclusion
Leveraging Hosting Capacity Analyses and implementing the BATRIES toolkit’s model language for the interconnection procedure are critical for effective solar and storage integration. Ultimately, regulatory reform is essential for unlocking the full potential.
States and utilities that embrace this toolkit’s language and recommendations are far better positioned to accelerate clean energy deployment, lower costs, and enhance grid reliability. These best practices and reforms will ensure that the grid can safely, reliably, and efficiently accommodate the next wave of distributed clean energy resources, meaning grid planners, utility analysts, and renewable energy developers can lead the transition to cleaner energy.
