Any energy that is consumed or injected in the market should follow market rules and the energy storage is no exception. Apart from the price which is still high, do you know any other regulatory obstacles in deployment of small energy storage systems? Any ideas what can be helpful in mass deployment of such systems from the regulatory perspective?
In Germany one reguatory obstacle is taxes and financing of renewables. Since the necessary money to finance the renewables is put on top of the energy / grid-fee prices for the customers you come to the point, that storage systems can get into the situation, that they are treated as customers of electricity and thus have to pay the additional taxes when storing electricity but might not have the chance to get this additional money back, when selling the energy again to the grid. As a result you would even loose money, when your storage generates no costs at all due to the taxes you pay.
Dear Armin,
Many thanks for your answer. Can you shed some light on how German TSOs and DSOs treat small scale energy storage systems? Are there any special fees dedicated to storage?
Best regards,
Mariusz
Dear Mariusz,
please appologize taht I did not find the time to write these lines earlier:
In general the current German electricity market model from the regulatory and legal stand point does not know storages. Hence, storages are in general treated as end customers as they consume electricity however showing a totally different characteristic (feed-in of electricity at discharge; this is normally not the case of a typical consumer).
Depending on what kind of market storages should be operating in, various requirements either from TSO or DSO must be met. For example, in case a storage should act as balancing energy provider certain requirements and perquisites from TSOs must be complied with. General statements on possible requirements are not possible and must be checked on a case by case basis.
As storages in general are treated as end users of electricity, certain levy must be paid according to German legislation. This is for example, electricity tax, grid feeds, CHP-levy, renewable energy surcharge. Depending on what storage is installed and in what market the storage is operating certain levy can be obviated. Exemptions of the respective levy and how they can be granted can be found in the corresponding laws (electricity tax law (StromStG), Renewable energy law (EEG), Grid fees (EnWG))
Best regards
Armin
Dear Armin,
Thanks for your time and answer which explains me a lot and give an incentive for further research! I understand that all those taxes and fees are the main obstacle in larger expansion of energy storage. Anyway, storage industry is growing and one can expect quite fast advancements in this area.
Best regards,
Mariusz
Hi Mariusz,
Another regulatory issue is how a storage system is treated in the grid. Most power systems have no definition a grid-tied ESS unit, and therefore the rate by which the service is charged for access or transmission are not clear. An ESS in discharge mode is really a generator, but this needs to be defined. Also from pricing perspective there are still many ambiguities. For example if the source of the energy stored is wind generation which otherwise would have been curtailed, should incentives (PTC, Feed in Tariffs,...) be applied to it when it is discharged from the ESS back into the grid ($/kW)?
Kibd regards,
Kamyar
These articles are helpful on utilizing small scale and large scale energy storage systems:
1)
Thesis Assessment of Renewable Energy Based Micro-Grids for Small Communities
2)
https://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/proceeding.aspx?articleID=2500877
3)
http://risk.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/article.aspx?articleid=2664169&resultClick=1