The goal of the ACES Working Group is to develop a library of educational resource to improve the understanding of those lending-to-, active-in, and customers-of the emerging energy storage project development market. The library of educational resources will be in the form of a “Best Practice Guide.” This Guide will be focused resources on individual topics and documents required in a project development effort. The development of the Best Practice Guide was guided by asking a simple question: What do you need to do your job better, faster, and cheaper?
This Best Practice Guide is designed to support more flexible and appropriate use of energy storage assets for new and innovative applications by improving the quality of project documentations through providing deeper insights and suitable examples that have been deemed acceptable and valuable by the lending community.
This Best Practice Guide (Guide or BPGs) covers key aspect areas of an energy storage project proposal. Each BPG contains three to seven chapters, and each chapter follows the same format for systematic coverage, and ease of navigation. This Guide documents the industry expertise of leading firms, covering the different project components to help reduce the internal cost of project development and financing for both project developers and investors.
The Guide is structured in a standard outline format so that no matter what their background or familiarity with the subject, readers will be able to grasp important aspects of energy storage more quickly and have at hand a library of useful resources for future reference.
Each BPG was developed by committees of subject matter experts to document and organize available expertise on different project components. Committee Coordinators were responsible for ensuring the development of all chapters in their individual BPG. Chapter Leads were responsible for coordinating the necessary effort required to write and produce BPG chapters.
While project developers may be familiar with the many parts comprising a project package, they are, however, often unsure as to how energy storage systems will impact each part. For their part, investors interested in the returns predicted from energy storage projects are often hesitant to invest because legal, financial and regulatory guidelines have not been clearly defined, detailed, and explained.
This guide is structured so that all reader, no matter their background or familiarity with the subject, can:
American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE)
California Energy Storage Alliance (CESA)
Clean Energy States Alliance (CESA)
Coalition for Green Capital
Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)
Energy Storage Association (ESA)
NAATBatt International (NAATBatt)
National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA)
New Energy Nexus (formerly California Clean Energy Fund)
North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB)
New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium (NY-BEST)
Pacific Northwest National Laboratories (PNNL)
Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI)
Photos courtesy of Key Capture Energy