Democrats in Richmond want to see Virginia expand its battery storage, as the Commonwealth modernizes its power grid. But critics fear the cost of the tech will fall on ratepayers long before they see savings in their monthly bills.
The ask, according to Democratic Delegate Rip Sullivan, is easy: “More and better energy storage is going to be required to get Virginia where it needs to be with respect to an affordable and reliable energy grid.”
To that end, he and fellow Democratic Senator Lamont Bagby will present legislation next week that sets new targets for power companies to implement battery storage.
“It’s about lowering costs, and this is what this legislative session will be much about,” Bagby said at the General Assembly Building Wednesday morning.
Among the companies elected officials imagine this plan will rely on is Fluence. John Zahurancik is with the Arlington-based energy outfit. He says battery storage was once seen as unobtainable, but innovation has helped bring down the once-costly process of storing excess energy when it's cheap to be released when needed.
“We’ve taken and made something that was once the holy grail and made it more like Tupperware," Zahurancik said. "We can store those leftovers, so we don’t have to throw them out.”
Still, critics, like Steve Haner with the conservative Thomas Jefferson Institute, say the costs may not outweigh the benefits.
“Every dime of build on this is going to come from ratepayers," Haner told Radio IQ. "They’re going to have to prove it’s going to save me some money.”
Dominion Energy charges about $4 a month to ratepayers for existing solar and storage projects. If currently proposed additions to the company’s renewable fleet are approved that rate will increase to $7.
But Del. Sullivan said the short-term costs will bring down rates in the future.
“I get accused of wanting to spend ratepayer money,” he said. “But you’ve got to ask, ‘versus what?’”
Sullivan said the cost of battery storage could offset the cost or even need of additional power plants.
“If we up our game on energy storage we may have to build fewer gas plants,” he said.
Virginia power producers currently estimate at least 5 additional natural gas plants will be needed to meet demand in the near future, though they are expected to take years to get online.
Del. Phil Hernandez, also there to support the effort, said battery storage could be online much sooner.
“If we’re able to get a regime in place with new battery storage projects that can happen at existing plants, that could happen in a matter of months,” Hernandez said.
The Norfolk Democrat plans to bring his own bill that seeks to get power companies to increase current generation, suggesting many generators were not already running at capacity.
“There’s more capacity to put more power on the grid right there,” he said of the also-yet-to-be-released effort that he said aims to streamline the energy project approval process as long as they rely on existing grid infrastructure.
“It could avoid the lengthy interconnection queue process, shaving years off the review,” he said.
Virginia is already in the battery storage business as well.
Dominion said they’ve got over 700 megawatts of proposed storage in the pipeline, well above the 250 megawatts required under the Virginia Clean Economy Act. And even outgoing Governor Glenn Youngkin is on the battery storage bandwagon: his Department of Energy handed out $3 million in grants to Rappahannock Electric Cooperative to develop a 4-megawatt battery facility just last month.
The bill proposed Wednesday are not yet live, though battery storage was listed among Governor Elect Abigail Spanberger’s Affordability Agenda meaning some version is likely to land on her desk later this year.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
