Hybrid Storage — A Worthy Adversary for Conventional Peakers?
For many years, U.S. storage and hybrid “solar + storage” projects have been a solution in search of a problem — and perhaps more importantly, a solution in search of market-based compensation mechanisms reflecting the value-added attributes a battery brings to the transmission ecosystem.Markets have slowly started to evolve, opening doors for storage to play in the wholesale realm, even if the benefits of FERC Order 841 (and the recent court decision upholding it) take years to play out in key RTOs and ISO. Solar hybrid projects have now evolved from beta testing to mainstream solutions — in many cases as big or bigger than peaking generation facilities — and are fundamentally changing how renewables are evaluated by grid operators, utilities, developers and investors.
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