ORIGINAL REPORTING: CCAs Link To Buy Long Duration Storage

“Super” CCA Collaboration for 500 MW of Long Duration Storage

Herman K. Trabish, Oct. 19, 2020 (California Current)

Editor’s note: The next big challenge for the energy transition is long duration storage.

Eight community choice aggregators are forming a procurement agency to jointly invest in much needed but neglected long duration energy storage. Leaders of the new Joint Powers Agency will issue a groundbreaking solicitation from their “super JPA“ that will pool the eight members’ resources and bid for up to 500 MW of long duration energy storage by 2026, Silicon Valley Clean Energy CEO Girish Balachandran said. It may become California’s biggest single buy to date of storage that supplies power for 8 hours or more, doubling the current output of shorter-term storage.

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The first goal is to make up to a $2 billion investment for “up to 500 MW of LDES from one or more projects” to be on-line date by 2026, according to SVCE’s Oct. 14 presentation to its board. It should not be only for regulatory compliance but should also be used by JPA member CCAs to serve the California market and earn returns for its energy, resource adequacy, and ancillary services values. A range of technologies may be selected, ranging from second life electric vehicle batteries to pumped hydro storage. By creating the super-JPA, CCAs would resolve one of the biggest problems in market dynamics “by creating large-scale demand,” Independent Energy Producers Association Executive Director Jan Smutny-Jones said… click here for more

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