Fundamentals of Solar-Plus-Storage
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SPECs workshops involved team co-ops with industry stakeholders and experts from U.S. DOE national energy laboratories to develop streamlined guidance for developing high-value solar-plus-storage projects.
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Fundamentals of Solar-Plus-Storage
The webinar Fundamentals of Solar-Plus-Storage for Electric Cooperatives was produced as an introduction to aspects of battery storage system design and procurement that are most relevant to co-ops today. Projects under consideration by these local utilities tend to be in the range of 0.5 to 10 MW (rarely up to 20 MW) and are paired with solar developments. The presenter, Jeff Cook-Coyle, is a SPECs technical advisor and veteran in the renewable energy and storage development sector (currently at Interconnected Systems, Inc.). Jeff reviews generic storage options and answers practical questions based on current market trends. The downloadable presentation was updated in August 2021.
| cook_colye_updated_21.pdf |
Storage Industry Topology: A Quick Review of the Field and the Players
This factsheet provides examples that may help co-ops to understand the landscape of products and services in the battery storage industry. It does not provide an exhaustive list, but divides the industry categorically as battery manufacturers, battery energy storage system (BESS) manufacturers, advanced operating system (AOS) providers, and developers that have internal or external partners specialized in addressing solar and storage aspects of the proposed co-op projects. This one-pager helps to answer the question, Who might respond to our project RFP—and how is it that the same battery manufacturers may be named in several developers' RFP responses?
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Introduction to Solar-Plus-Storage Strategies for Local Utilities (Archival)
This report was originally produced for the Community Solar Value Project Shared Solar program, as an introduction to all forms of energy storage that could be useful and cost-effective for distribution utilities. Battery chemistries as well as non-chemical storage are explained. Use cases for solar-plus-storage, both in front of the meter and behind the meter, are defined and illustrated. Of particular interest, the report describes ways to use controlled thermal energy storage (e.g., customer-side water heater storage) and other technologies to supplement or replace the need for some battery applications. Battery pricing is much more attractive since this publication in 2017, but this concise text is still timely and useful as an introduction for local utilities, to today's integrated distributed energy resource strategies.
| 2017_09_30_final_6_solar__storage_guide_2_.pdf |
Fundamental Resources from NRECA
While SPECs is not affiliated with the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), the project team included NRECA in stakeholder discussions and recognizes its leadership in helping to address co-op solar and solar-plus opportunities. Two recent guides published or co-published by NRECA provide fundamental guidance on battery storage technology and applications in the co-op sector. See more information on battery storage, solar-plus-storage and other distributed energy resources (DERs) at NRECA.
| battery-energy-storage-overview-report-update-may-2020.pdf |
| battery-energy-storage-use-cases-january-2021.pdf |
* Acknowledgements and a Disclaimer, which are required on the U.S. Department of Energy funded portion of this work, are included on under the About/Project tab of this website. Users of all resources and information on this site are cautioned to perform due diligence in adapting content to a specific local project or opportunity.