Loads Providing Ancillary Services: Review of International Experience

In this study, we examine the arrangements for and experiences of end-use loads providing ancillary services (AS) in five electricity markets: Australia, the United Kingdom (UK), the Nordic market, and the ERCOT and PJM markets in the United States. Our objective in undertaking this review of international experience was to identify specific approaches or market designs that have enabled customer loads to effectively deliver various ancillary services (AS) products. We hope that this report will contribute to the ongoing discussion in the U.S. and elsewhere regarding what institutional and technical developments are needed to ensure that customer loads can meaningfully participate in all wholesale electricity markets

Assessment of Energy Storage Alternatives in the Puget Sound Energy System

As part of an ongoing study co-funded by the Bonneville Power Administration, under its Technology Innovation Grant Program, and the U.S. Department of Energy, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has developed an approach and modeling tool for assessing the net benefits of using energy storage located close to the customer in the distribution grid to manage demand. PNNL in collaboration with PSE and Primus Power has evaluated the net benefits of placing a zinc bromide battery system at two locations in the PSE system (Baker River / Rockport and Bainbridge Island). Energy storage can provide a number of benefits to the utility through the increased flexibility it provides to the grid system. Applications evaluated in the assessment include capacity value, balancing services, arbitrage, distribution deferral and outage mitigation. This report outlines the methodology developed for this study and Phase I results

Assessment of Energy Storage Alternatives in the Puget Sound Energy System Volume 2: Energy Storage Evaluation Tool

This volume presents the battery storage evaluation tool developed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), which is used to evaluate benefits of battery storage for multiple grid applications, including energy arbitrage, balancing service, capacity value, distribution system equipment deferral, and outage mitigation. This tool is based on the optimal control strategies to capture multiple services from a single energy storage device. In this control strategy, at each hour, a look-ahead optimization is first formulated and solved to determine battery base operating point. The minute by minute simulation is then performed to simulate the actual battery operation. This volume provide background and manual for this evaluation tool

Requirements for Defining Utility Drive Cycles: An Exploratory Analysis of Grid Frequency Regulation Data for Establishing Battery Performance Testing Standards

Battery testing procedures are important for understanding battery performance, including degradation over the life of the battery. Standards are important to provide clear rules and uniformity to an industry. The work described in this report addresses the need for standard battery testing procedures that reflect real-world applications of energy storage systems to provide regulation services to grid operators. This work was motivated by the need to develop Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) testing procedures, or V2G drive cycles. Likewise, the stationary energy storage community is equally interested in standardized testing protocols that reflect real-world grid applications for providing regulation services. As the first of several steps toward standardizing battery testing cycles, this work focused on a statistical analysis of frequency regulation signals from the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Interconnect with the goal to identify patterns in the regulation signal that would be representative of the entire signal as a typical regulation data set. Results from an extensive time-series analysis are discussed, and the results are explained from both the statistical and the battery-testing perspectives. The results then are interpreted in the context of defining a small set of V2G drive cycles for standardization, offering some recommendations for the next steps toward standardizing testing protocols

Protocol for uniformly measuring and expressing the performance of energy storage systems.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Storage Systems (ESS) Program, through the support of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), facilitated the development of the protocol provided in this report. The focus of the protocol is to provide a uniform way of measuring, quantifying, and reporting the performance of ESSs in various applications; something that does not exist today and, as such, is hampering the consideration and use of this technology in the market. The availability of an application-specific protocol for use in measuring and expressing performance-related metrics of ESSs will allow technology developers, power-grid operators and other end-users to evaluate the performance of energy storage technologies on a uniform and comparable basis. This will help differentiate technologies and products for specific application(s) and provide transparency in how performance is measured. It also will assist utilities and other consumers of ESSs to make more informed decisions as they consider the potential application and use of ESSs, as well as form the basis for documentation that might be required to justify utility investment in such technologies

Protocol for Uniformly Measuring and Expressing the Performance of Energy Storage Systems

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Storage Systems (ESS) Program, through the support of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), facilitated the development of the protocol provided in this report. The focus of the protocol is to provide a uniform way of measuring, quantifying, and reporting the performance of EESs in various applications; something that does not exist today and, as such, is hampering the consideration and use of this technology in the market. The availability of an application-specific protocol for use in measuring and expressing performance-related metrics of ESSs will allow technology developers, power-grid operators and other end-users to evaluate the performance of energy storage technologies on a uniform and comparable basis. This will help differentiate technologies and products for specific application(s) and provide transparency in how performance is measured. It also will assist utilities and other consumers of ESSs make more informed decisions as they consider the potential application and use of ESSs, as well as form the basis for documentation that might be required to justify utility investment in such technologies

Transit Fleet Electrification Barriers, Resolutions and Costs

This paper synthesizes insights from a workshop on fleet electrification at the 2023 Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, which included participants from transit agencies, national labs, industry, government and academia. Participants identified barriers to fleet electrification including lack of knowledge on fleet electrification, high utility demand charges, lack of charging infrastructure, delays in grid infrastructure upgrades and high up-front costs. To overcome these challenges, panelists emphasized partnering with OEMs and utilities, and having flexible charging infrastructure with software support tools. Finally, participants identified opportunities for integrating with electricity markets on peak demand management, time-of-use charging, participation in wholesale markets, and various vehicle-to-grid solutions. Based on these findings, we propose specific steps that various stakeholders like fleet operators, utilities and regulatory authorities could take

Contested visions and sociotechnical expectations of electric mobility and vehicle-to-grid innovation in five Nordic countries

Based on original data derived from 257 expert respondents across Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, we investigate the different expectations and visions associated with one form of low carbon transport, electric mobility, inclusive of vehicle-to-grid and vehicle-grid-integration configurations. Utilizing concepts from the sociology of expectation—notably rhetorical visions, ideographs, promise-requirement cycles, and enablers and selectors—we examine how future electric mobility is envisioned. A collection of eight visions is analyzed and then placed into a typology. Some visions see electric mobility as a harbinger of positive social change in terms of ubiquitous automobility or endless innovation, others warn of families literally stranded and freezing to death on mountains and a business landscape marred with insolvent and financially struggling firms. We conclude with insights about what such competing and contradictory visions mean for energy and climate policy as well as sustainability transitions