Texas Public Utilities Commissioners urge ERCOT to facilitate adding storage batteries to Texas grid

AUSTIN, Texas — Electricity providers across Texas are preparing for the high power demands that come with winter weather, but some state regulators worry ERCOT-- the operators of the statewide grid-- may be ignoring an important resource battery power.

You may have noticed those big boxes next to solar panel installations here in Austin. They are battery banks. Austin Energy uses them to store electricity that can be tapped when needed.

Energy expert Doug Lewin says that on September 6th, storage batteries may have saved the day. The publisher of the Texas Electric Energy and Power Newsletter explains, “They haven't said this number, but I think it's safe to say (the grid was) within a few 100 megawatts of outages at a time when we were getting 2,181 megawatts of storage. So, without that 2,181 really without even half of that 2,181, we almost certainly would have been in rolling outages."

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And there's now more battery storage across Texas than you might think. Texas Public Utility Commissioner Lori Cabos says, “We have a little bit over 4,000 megawatts in our current system right now, with about 8,000 on the horizon. And we could have 14,000 megs next year.”

State regulators are looking at rule changes to facilitate the installation of this energy resource, but they worry ERCOT's reliance on rules written for traditional power plants should be updated for this new technology. PUC Commissioner Jimmy Glotfelty says, “We don't need to make everything look like a coal plant. We should be able to understand the benefits of these flexible resources without having penalty structures that are disproportionately challenging to battery sources.”

ERCOT’s VP for system operations counters, “They have a limited duration that they can provide service. That's a parameter that we need to take into account for them that we don't take into account for coal. So, we're in fact not treating them like a coal plant.”

But Lewin says battery storage has its place in keeping the lights on in many events. “Obviously, winter storm “Uri” was a multi-day event. Battery storage doesn't solve that problem. However, most of the problems, the vast majority of problems we have on the grid are of short duration, and storage does help there."

Regulators got the last word in, telling the grid operators if they have any evidence of problems with battery storage they should present it.