The PJM grid region serving 65 million customers from Chicago to New Jersey needs to add 16 GW of four-hour battery storage by 2032 to maintain reliability in the face of growing electricity demand, according to a Brattle study.
Without the added storage, PJM could experience up to 15 GW of “load shed risk” during challenging periods in 2032, such as periods of extreme cold, and customer costs could increase 30%.
Storage projects in the PJM region totaling 11 GW of capacity are awaiting interconnection studies, according to the planning page of PJM’s website.
But a Hitachi dataset accessed at the time of Brattle’s study showed that no new storage was “planned” in the PJM region through 2030, said study co-author Akarsh Sheilendranath, a Brattle principal.
The Hitachi Energy Velocity Suite dataset “largely represents announced or reported planned projects of PJM’s load-serving entities,” which “may be in advanced queue study process stages,” he said.
Brattle assumed in its analysis that all of the 7+ GW of fossil capacity active in PJM’s interconnection queue would be operating in 2028, while at most an additional 10+ GW of new gas facilities would be operating by 2032, and 13.5 GW of renewable projects shown as planned in the Hitachi dataset would come online by 2030.
The Brattle study said that “despite recent efforts to increase available near-term capacity,” such as PJM’s Reliability Resource Initiative, “PJM’s interconnection process imposes a multi-year study wait-time” and “demand for gas turbines exceeds supply, leading to protracted wait times for fulfilling orders.”
The U.S. Energy Storage Coalition, a new trade group that commissioned the study, said these factors as well as trade barriers are slowing progress, “making battery storage a critical solution to balance supply, manage peak demand, and complement both renewable and thermal resources.” The statement was made before China set export limits affecting the battery industry.
“Hundreds of storage projects are stalled in PJM’s interconnection queue, representing billions in investment and thousands of jobs,” the trade group said.
The group called on PJM and state policymakers to streamline interconnection, reform market rules to “properly value” storage, clarify transmission charges, and modernize permitting standards.
Without “decisive action,” the group said, “millions of homes and businesses could face costly and dangerous reliability risks within the next decade.”
PJM’s Reliability Resource Initiative selected 51 projects for expedited interconnection earlier this year, including 1.6 GW of storage projects among a preponderance of fossil-based projects, while rejecting 46 projects, primarily storage projects.
Responding to the Brattle study, a PJM spokesperson said that “PJM has been clear that load growth cannot be met by the projects in the queue alone, given the speed of the forecasted demand increases. We need as many of those projects to come online as possible, along with much more new supply. We are not focused on one fuel or technology alone; we need energy in all its forms to maintain reliability.”
PJM members, the spokesperson added, “recently approved manual changes to allow the possibility for new resources to provide energy only (not capacity) under certain conditions prior to required network upgrades being completed.”
Two University of California researchers have analyzed how PJM could fast-track 24 GW of storage and 102 GW of solar at underused points of interconnection.
By 2040, Brattle projected that PJM will need to add 23 GW of four-hour storage.
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