Hartford Business Journal

14 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | MAY 31, 2021 By Zachary Vasile zvasile@hartfordbusiness.com W hen the Hartford Business Journal asked Connecticut manufacturers, regulators and researchers about the viability of large-scale energy storage devices, or batteries, in 2017, they agreed that while the technology would one day be useful or even transformative, numerous obstacles, including cost, were making widespread adoption impractical. Four years later, however, the view among industry insiders is much different, with many noting that batteries are, and have been, "ready for prime time," in the words of Melissa P. Gillett, chairperson of the state Public Utilities Regulatory Authority. PURA last year issued a straw proposal laying out what regulators would hope to achieve through the adoption of energy storage systems, including hardening the grid against disasters like Tropical Storm Isaias, which left around 800,000 customers without power, some for more than a week. "Resilience is the primary objective here," Gillett said. But regulators also see other applications, including the use of batteries to mitigate reliance on "peaking units," power plants that run only when there is high demand, or the deployment of energy storage assets for medical hardship customers, who must have power at all times. For years, the energy sector has looked to batteries as a way to regulate and control peaks in demand. The technology has also been presented as a boon to renewable intermittent energy sources such as solar and wind power, because it can redeploy stored-up electricity for times when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing. High costs, however, kept many companies, including utilities, on the sidelines of battery development. Industrywide doubts about the viability of energy storage systems were neatly summed up in a 2016 study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Chicago's Argonne National Laboratory, which concluded that battery-aided renewable energy plants were a "weak substitute" for larger and more flexible coal- or natural gas-fueled resources. Increasingly, however, investments in batteries are bearing fruit in the form of improved capacity and reliability, and costs are coming under control. "The technology has gotten to the point where it's a viable network asset," said Roger Kranenburg, vice president for energy strategy and policy at Eversource Energy. "It's another tool in the toolbox." Over time, batteries have been improved and refined through use in cellular phones, computers and electric vehicles, Kranenburg said, paving the way for new applications. "It's a continuous progression that's driving the evolution of batteries," he said. "Costs fall and performance gets better." Eversource is in the process of installing a 38 megawatt-hour lithium-ion battery in Provincetown, at the far tip of Cape Cod in eastern Massachusetts. The coastal community presented an interesting test case for the utility, as it's fed by a distribution line that runs the entire length of the peninsula. Barring an undersea cable from Boston, there's no other way to route electricity there, meaning a severe storm or even a car accident can turn Provincetown dark for an extended period of time. The battery, once up and running later this year, should keep the lights on even if Provincetown loses its connection to the central power grid, Kranenburg said. Though the Provincetown battery seems to be the first of its kind, Kranenburg said he could envision utility companies one day deploying Large-scale batteries, once hobbled by cost, ready for 'prime time' Melissa P. Gillett Roger Kranenburg Eversource's battery facility in Provincetown, Mass., will help the coastal community keep the power on if it loses connection to the central power grid. PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED

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