Today’s LiveWire Spotlight examines a joint NERC/WECC study which anticipates Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) will be massively deployed over the next decade; requiring coordinated plans to deal with the change. This trend will affect Planners, who must define the types of Essential Reliability Services that BESS must support before they are installed; and Operators, who will need to update their Real-time, same-day, and next-day models/study scenarios to include strategically-located BESS.
The NERC/WECC joint study sensibly balances the promise of reliability that hybrid systems offer against its weaknesses. Still, it was issued before the Texas ice-storm blackouts – and the blow-back may bring question to the technology’s operating temperature range.