WASHINGTON, April 28, 2016 - Vastly underutilized energy
storage resources, such as the nation’s 50
million residential electric water heaters, can provide substantial
environmental and cost benefits, according to research
conducted by The
Brattle Group. The research was sponsored by
the National Rural Electric Cooperative
Association (NRECA), the Natural Resources
Defense Council (NRDC), the Peak Load
Management Alliance (PLMA) and Great
River Energy (GRE).
To leverage these untapped energy storage resources, energy
and environmental stakeholders are joining together to support a new
enterprise, called The
Community Storage Initiative (CSI). The defining characteristic of a
community storage program, says CSI, is the “coordinated dispatch and
optimization of premises-based energy storage resources, often behind a
consumer’s energy meter, to achieve electric system-wide benefit.”
By aggregating distributed energy technologies that are
located throughout a community – such as water heaters, electric vehicles and
interconnected storage batteries – utility-sponsored programs can increase
energy efficiency, better integrate renewable energy resources onto the grid
and save customers money.
“We believe there’s a battery hidden in basements all across
our service territory,” says Gary Connett, director of member services at Great
River Energy, a generation and transmission cooperative based in Maple Grove,
Minnesota. “When the wind is blowing or the sun is shining, large capacity
water heaters can be enabled to make immediate use of that energy to heat water
to high temperatures. The water heaters can be shut down when renewables are
scarce and wholesale costs are high.”
The CSI will be chaired by Connett. A list of supporters and
descriptions of their community storage efforts is available on the
Initiative’s website.
Initiative members are currently conducting a range of community storage
programs, including grid-interactive water heating, electric vehicle charging,
grid-interactive space heating, ice storage technology and residential battery
storage.
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