Business Models for Deploying and Operating Energy Storage and Risk Mitigation Aspects

Energy storage is a novel technology with perceived performance and lifecycle risks. In addition, there are many different business/regulatory paradigms for investors in storage resources based on existing business models for electric power assets today. At the heart of designing storage applications for best cost-benefit results and for evaluating storage economics of particular applications is the way different business models realize direct monetized benefits and indirect avoided costs from energy storage. This paper unpacks the complexities of deploying and operating energy storage and identifies any potential barriers to participation in storage. It lays out some of the existing and hypothetical business models for the investment in and operation of electric storage, and explores the complexities and possibilities of these business models when storage is bucketed” as a generation, transmission, distribution, or customer asset. It also identifies possible policy recommendations and areas for further analysis, including some alternative models that consider storage as a unique asset class that offers services offered by other assets today.