This technology is ready for deployment, says Vic Shao, CEO for the Santa Clara, California-based energy storage startup Green Charge Networks, pointing to a dual-use converter developed by converter startup Ideal Power. The Austin, Texas-based Ideal Power’s 30-kilowatt device is set to begin shipping in May and will cost about 30 percent less than a pair of conventional converters, according to Ryan O’Keefe, Ideal Power’s senior vp for business development.
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However, there’s a problem, says Shao, in that utilities in Hawaii and California are using net metering tariff regulations to block dual-use converters. Utilities across the country are trying to restrain or repeal net-metering for solar systems, which threaten to cut into their bottom line. In California and Hawaii they are fighting efforts to extend net metering to storage, and the integration of storage and PV is caught in the crossfire.
Under the states’ existing tariffs, power from batteries does not qualify for net metering, and utilities enforce this by limiting the output of storage systems to no more than a customer’s minimum power demand. “They look at the maximum output power of the battery converter to make sure we’re never exporting power,” says Shao.
Dual-use inverters would make it impossible to distinguish stored power from PV power, hence the utilities’ refusal to allow their use. “We’re doing a number of installations with solar and storage at the same time, but they go through separate converters,” says Shao.
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But Shao says the utilities’ converter rules increase costs for systems that combine PV and storage and are thus a disincentive for installations that would benefit both Green Charge Network’s customers and the utilities. In such installations the same battery that absorbs a site’s demand spikes can simultaneously aid the utilities by moderating dips and surges in solar output that occur as clouds pass overhead.
Read more at Storing Solar Energy: A Great Idea Caught on Contested Ground
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