Over October 26 to 27 at the 8th Wonder Brewery in Houston, Texas, leaders across the energy sector who are seeking to bring forth the era of transformation and transition in the power industry convened to share insights and collaborate at the Fuze Energy Conference. Among those in attendance was Manoj Reddy, the Head of Power Markets & Analytics for ibV Energy Partners.
Specifically, Manoj spoke on a panel entitled “Will Energy Storage Make Renewables Irresistible” alongside fellow industry thought leaders Kay McCall (Executive Director of REAL Houston, Board Member EDPR), Hong Zhang Durandal (Senior Manager of Energy Storage Business Development and M&A at EDPR), and Nancy Zakhour (Associate of Energy & Power at Pipe Sandler). This panel’s goal was give the latest review of what exactly energy storage is and highlight the critical ways in which it will enable renewable energy sources to more effectively support energy transition and also address, s the intermittency problem inherent to standalone solar or wind energy.
Reports from those at the Fuze Energy Conference were that the discussion was productive, particularly valuable for the participants listening in that included oil & gas industry leaders seeking to embrace where renewable energy can strengthen their operations, Houston-area venture capitalists who sense the shifting tides towards such renewables plus storage installations, and other investors interested in advancing the energy transition.
Some key takeaways from the valuable conversation include the following:
- The energy sector as a whole is indeed at a tipping point where we see large scale adoption of energy storage into the traditional energy mix.
- The recent technology changes, cost improvements, and regulatory developments (notably the Inflation Reduction Act) are enabling the ‘decoupling’ of energy storage from renewable energy sites, meaning that the grid can address the intermittency challenge of renewables more effectively and flexibly by disaggregating where economics or space constraints make doing so beneficial, leading to a future with less transmission congestion.
- While the main energy storage focus centers on batteries and battery energy storage systems (BESS), leaders in Oil & Gas and the mining industries are also evaluating compressed air energy storage (CAES), molten salt energy storage, compressed air-brine energy storage, pumped hydropower, and more.
- The United States lagged behind on energy storage due to lack of a sustained focus on the necessary supply chains for rare earth minerals and some elements required for current battery chemistries. However, due to the recent regulatory support and perceived long-term interest, this shortcoming could quickly change and become a U.S. strength in the next several years
- From a software and energy management solutions perspective, several new start-up companies and associated technologies have been emerging to address the dispatch and optimization of grid around batteries, enabling the bottom line of energy storage to be bolstered and incentivizing further investment and installation.
- In the future, electric vehicles (EVs) and microgrid-related BESS capacity could also be integrated into market mechanisms to better manage grid dispatch and emergency conditions.
Overall, the walls continue to come down between previously siloed aspects of the energy industry, as oil & gas companies recognize the value of integrating clean technology, renewable installations much consider energy storage to be of optimal value, and stand-alone energy storage starts to gain equal footing to solve for grid flexibility and reliability challenges. Manoj Reddy and the team at ibV Energy continues to strive to bring these various aspects of the sector together, whether through leading by example at the intersection of oil & gas and solar, driving the conversation on how legislation can best be used to leverage solar energy, or assisting rural and agricultural communities in integrating new clean energy solutions.