As we continue to see an increased penetration of intermittent generation onto the grid, and an urgency to deploy renewable projects to fulfil impending state targets, the US is at the center of the energy storage revolution.
Energy storage is at an inflection point across the country, and with the recent passing of the Inflation Reduction Act in August this year, it will no doubt continue to play a fundamental role in the transformation of the power sector. That said, the industry has other growing concerns it must face head-on.
With billions of USD going into the sector for financing projects and infrastructure through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, an estimated 1444 GW of renewable generation in the queue, nearly 1,900 projects and many more jostling for a place on the grid, the market is certainly on track to remain the biggest in the world for energy storage. Nevertheless, huge growth of a relatively new technology brings with it many growing pains, which we will attempt to explore and analyze at the Summit.
Underneath the buzz and excitement in the industry, particularly with the extension of the ITC to standalone storage coupled with the indirect impact of the PTC, there are growing concerns around rising prices for supplies and long waits for equipment, which are delaying many projects and causing serious problems for developers. The supply chain crisis is not one that is seen to have a quick fix, given global and geopolitical events, so the industry has to find ways to work around these problems. One of the other huge problems in the US is the sheer size of the interconnection queues – how do the RTOs and ISOs manage this and what needs to happen to ease the strain on the transmission system?