Key methodological requirements from EMD Article 19e(4,b) – such as accounting for all flexibility sources cost-efficiently and planned investments – are not fully respected; ERAA's simplifications, while suitable for resource adequacy, become oversimplifications in the flexibility needs and replicate the same drawbacks as ERAA;.
Approximately 16 states have adopted some form of energy storage policy, which broadly fall into the following categories: procurement targets, regulatory adaption, demonstration programs, financial incentives, and consumer protections. Below we give an overview of each of these energy storage policy categories.
While California, Oregon, and Massachusetts are the only states with energy storage mandates, other states such as New York and Washington are taking first steps towards robust policy actions through incorporating energy storage value propositions in their IRP processes and energy storage market design studies ( Stanfield et al., 2017 ).
Energy storage policies across the U.S., when they exist, vary greatly. The Interstate Renewable Energy Council recently reviewed U.S. policies related to energy storage and found that very few regions have energy storage mandates and appropriate valuation methodologies ( Stanfield et al., 2017 ).
All of the states with a storage policy in place have a renewable portfolio standard or a nonbinding renewable energy goal. Regulatory changes can broaden competitive access to storage such as by updating resource planning requirements or permitting storage through rate proceedings.
Nevertheless, policy and market barriers that have stifled adoption in past years continue to do so. If only considered for a single service, energy storage often costs more when compared to traditional infrastructure such as thermoelectric generators (Diaz de la Rubia et al., 2017).
Energy storage resources are capable of acting as a transmission, distribution, or generating asset, or as a dynamic load. Therefore, storage assets are usually classified as a function of the service they provide. For storage assets providing multiple services, classification is difficult.
The European Union will scrap import controls on solar panels and cells from China in September, rejecting a request from EU producers who argue that the bloc will be opening its doors to a flood o.
The EU is fully dependent on China for solar panels and at least two conventional risks are associated with this. The first is the economic risk that China might in the future make use of its predominant position in global solar PV manufacturing to distort the market and artificially obtain additional economic rents.
The EU needs to have access to affordable photovoltaic panels, in her view. McGuinness did admit that the dependence on Chinese imports could strengthen further. More than 97% of solar panels installed in the EU are imported and most come from China, she asserted.
More than 90 percent of solar panels deployed in the EU are still imported from China, primarily because of their low price. In 2022, Chinese solar panels were estimated to be the cheapest in the world at $0.26/watt (Woodhouse et al, 2021).
If nothing changes, this expansion will be based almost exclusively on solar panels imported from China, which supplies over 95 percent of solar panels used in the EU. This dependence has raised concerns about EU economic security and geopolitical vulnerabilities, especially in light of recent global disruption.
Imposing trade restrictions on Chinese solar panels would lead to higher costs, slowing deployment of panels and, possibly, a net-negative job effect. That would occur if more jobs were lost from a slowing of deployment than new jobs were created in possible new manufacturing facilities.
The solar industry letters both recommended that the commission makes an emergency acquisition of European solar manufacturers' inventories and accelerates a planned regulation banning products made with forced labour.
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