The Systep Report also recommends identifying whether these services “are network assets, generation assets or of a new category, not allowing vertical integration of their functions”.
Proposal to ensure commercial incentives for investment in energy storage
The need for regulation to ensure that commercial incentives for investment and the implementation of energy storage services “are aligned with the real economic benefits they produce, together with the efficient operation of the electricity system” raised the analysis of the Systep report, corresponding to May.
According to the consultant’s analysis, services of this type that are connected to the electricity system “although they are subject to the operation of the (National Electricity) Coordinator, they must be managed under a coherent regulation between the technical, planning and economic operation aspects”.
Conditions
The report indicates that the National Electric Coordinator “must be continuously evaluating the rules and regulations of the storage systems, ensuring that the restrictions in their operation are only due to the system’s own limitations”.
“In particular, care must be taken not to restrict the use of storage services only to the scope of Complementary Services and technical support, but also to ensure that those that are available are used in the economic dispatch. A challenge for the integration of these services in the economic operation would be to improve the prediction and monitoring mechanisms of generation resources from intermittent sources, in order to take advantage of their services in the dispatch and balance of energy”, the analysis indicates.
The report states that storage systems require a regulatory framework that allows “recognizing their real benefits, clearing possible barriers in their integration and safeguarding the competition conditions of all the actors”, and therefore the need to identify whether they are network assets, generation assets or of a new category, not allowing vertical integration of their functions”.
“The most frequent in liberalized markets is to consider them as generation assets. However, it is worth asking whether a regulatory scheme will be able to establish appropriate rules that maximize the efficiency of the market mechanisms, and at the same time optimize the services associated with the operation of the electricity grid”, the consultant points out.
“The regulatory scheme should facilitate the implementation of storage services and consider appropriate remuneration mechanisms. Their implementation can be encouraged by ensuring that their owners, managers and operators have freedom in the design of energy storage, without requirements that hinder their integration. Then, the freedom of design would be subject to the needs and operating conditions of the system,” the report states.
