Greentech Media covered the federal appeals court decision upholding FERC's Order 841, a win for the energy storage market, quoting AEE's Jeff Dennis. Read excerpts below and the entire Greentech Media piece here.
In a victory for the energy storage industry, a federal appeals court has upheld the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Order 841, clearing the way for transmission grid operators across the country to open their markets to energy storage, including aggregated batteries connected at the distribution grid or behind customers’ meters...
Friday’s court opinion declared that FERC has jurisdiction over how energy storage interacts with the interstate transmission markets it regulates, even if those systems are interconnected to the grid under regulations set by the states. The court also rejected arguments by utility groups and state utility regulators seeking to opt out of allowing energy storage resources (ESRs) to participate under Order 841, which allows for units as small as 100 kilowatts to access wholesale markets.
Instead, the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed with FERC’s contention that “[k]eeping the gates open to all types of ESRs — regardless of their interconnection points in the electric energy systems — ensures that technological advances in energy storage are fully realized in the marketplace, and efficient energy storage leads to greater competition, thereby reducing wholesale rates...”
“[Distributed energy resources] are uniquely valuable in that they can provide services across both retail and wholesale markets,” Jeff Dennis, managing director and general counsel of Advanced Energy Economy, a pro-renewables trade group, said in an interview this week. “Making sure they can provide both, and not be forced to pick one or the other, is an important issue...”
Read the entire Greentech Media piece here.