The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has unanimously approved a long-term procurement decision ordering Southern California Edison (SCE) to procure between 1,400 and 1,800 MW of energy resource capacity in the Los Angeles basin to meet long-term local capacity requirements by 2021. Of this amount, at least 50 MW is required by the CPUC to be procured by SCE from energy storage resources, as well as up to an additional total of 600 MW of capacity required to be procured from preferred resources - including energy storage resources.
Under the CPUC's final decision, energy storage resources must be considered "along with preferred resources," including energy efficiency, demand response and distributed generation, consistent with the clean energy resource procurement priorities embodied in California's Energy Action Plan.
Janice Lin, executive director of the California Energy Storage Alliance and managing partner of Strategen Consulting LLC, says, "Required energy storage procurement under this decision provides a much needed market signal that energy storage will be considered as a key asset class to help California address its long-term local reliability needs."
In his introduction before the dais, Commissioner Michel Peter Florio, the assigned commissioner responsible for the CPUC’s long-term procurement planning rulemaking, expressed the rationale for the decision during the CPUC's discussion, stating "We need to move beyond paralysis by analysis with respect to energy storage." The decision will have immediate impact, as SCE is directed to file an application for each local reliability area seeking approval of contracts by late 2013 or early 2014.
