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Policy Work

CESA has made grid-connected storage a leading focus area for California and beyond. California policymakers now understand the tremendous role energy storage can play to optimize the electric power system.

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CESA policy work is steeped in the following principles:

  1. CESA supports and advances all forms of energy storage​
  2. CESA supports and actively helps promote a competitive and transparent marketplace​
  3. CESA supports and actively practices collaborative, constructive engagement with all stakeholders, and in particular, key energy storage champions

CESA Delivers Top-Tier Stakeholder Engagement

To execute our mission, CESA ensures that member interests are represented 
and appropriately considered in the key forums shaping California’s electric grid:

Key CESA Accomplishments Include

CESA Helped California Recognize and Increase the Value of Energy Storage
  • Actively participating in modeling efforts at CPUC to appropriately model and value energy storage, with over 11,000 MW of battery storage identified as being needed through 2030 to achieve the state’s decarbonization goals, up from 2,000 MW as identified in the previous 2017-2018 Preferred System Portfolio (D.19-04-040)
  • Actively modeling and advocating for the capacity value of plus-storage solutions, compelling the CPUC to establish an interim capacity value methodology to support hybrid resources in competitive solicitations
  • Successfully advocated to get the utilities to be directed to conduct capacity-related modeling in RPS program for 1, 2, and 4-hour pairings of storage (D.19-09-043)
  • Adopted new GHG emission reduction requirements that aligned SGIP-funded storage systems with GHG goals while balancing other grid-support and market transformation goals that work for different types of storage projects and customers (D.19-09-011) 
  • Shaped contracting terms for storage to provide distribution deferral and multiple-use applications
  • Advocated for dynamic, performance-based pathways for thermal storage participation in SGIP
CESA Helped Reduce Barriers for Energy Storage
  • Ensured that wholesale distribution interconnection barriers are fair and reasonable 
  • Streamlined and approved pathways for NEM-paired storage interconnections (D.19-03-013, D.19-01-030)  
  • Developed proposals to enable the interconnection of vehicle-to-X (grid, home, building) under Rule 21 to provide mobile storage capabilities
  • Developing storage resource management tools in the CAISO to better enable storage participation, including for storage as transmission assets
CESA Helped to Dramatically Expand Market Opportunities at Historic Levels in California
  • Glendale City Council approved Glendale Department of Water & Power plans to replace a significant portion of the original repowering plans with 75 MW of IFOM storage and 12.8 MW of residential solar-plus-storage resources  
  • SCE announced procurement of 81 MW of energy storage to address multiple needs, including alleviating natural gas shortages, providing local capacity in Moorpark, and providing some support for grid resiliency in the Goleta-Santa Clara areas  
  • SCE announced procurement of 100 MW of energy storage (A.19-04-016) for to address local capacity need in Moorpark that replace fossil-fuel plant retirements
  • Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay CCAs procured 85 MW of storage combined that are paired with solar
  • East Bay CCA procured 20 MW of energy storage as part of Oakland Clean Energy Initiative in collaboration with PG&E to ensure transmission reliability
  • All LSEs will need to procure at least 3,300 MW between 2021-2023 to address System RA capacity shortfalls (D.19-11-016)
  • Incentive rates for Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP) Equity Budget revised upward to support low-income and disadvantaged customers and a new $100-million Equity Resiliency Budget established to support customer resiliency needs (D.19-09-027) 
  • SB 676 (Bradford) was passed with CESA support to establish targets to be achieved by 2025 and 2030 for electric vehicle grid integration  
  • SB 49 (Skinner) was passed with CESA support to develop standards for appliances and buildings to facilitate load management, including grid-integration technologies such as storage
  • Demand Response Auction Mechanism (DRAM) was approved for $14 million per year extension through 2022 that will test how third-party-operated demand response and energy storage can provide system, local, or flexible capacity (D.19-07-009) 

Advocacy That Yields Results

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Advocate

CESA helped lead the passage of AB 2625, providing an exemption to the Subdivision Map Act and making it easier to permit storage.

CESA is a leader in the development of the Slice-of-Day framework within the Resource Adequacy program, ensuring proper valuation for all storage.

CESA advocates for energy storage to be properly represented across markets.

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Grow

CESA worked with the CA Legislature and the CEC to unlock $140M in incentives for long-duration storage.

CESA intervened to ensure proper valuation of storage in the Microgrid Incentive Program, which provides $200M for community microgrids in disadvantaged and vulnerable communities.

CESA supports market growth across the Western grid, delivering compelling, evidence-based, technology-neutral advocacy.

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Shape

CESA advocates for improvements to the market participation and modeling of energy storage resources within CAISO’s Energy Storage Enhancements (ESE) initiative.

In Price Formation Enhancements, CESA ensures efficient pricing and advocates to improve the optimization of storage assets.