Session 3: Bridging the gap (will batteries deliver the stability we are looking for?)

PN: Yeah, Nick I tend to agree, I mean the thing that concerns me is that the roadmap itself concentrates on the energy market outcome, but as we know and certainly with… even with the experiences of the current energy storage systems that we have, particularly I'm thinking Hornsdale and the like, the real value to the system is beyond those sorts of positions so, it concerns me that the roadmap focuses on that.  I think it's fair to say, other papers and other things in the reform processes have really looked to a broader range of attributes and how they could utilize them, but it sort of seems to me that it's consistent with the Federal Government's concentration on driving price in this transition outcome.

NC: Yeah, that's right, that's right and I think the other consideration here, Paul, as you've mentioned is actually the technology suitability, just going back to that point is that, you know, as a lot of people on the call may know, you know, a short duration battery versus a long duration battery is a very interesting discussion around what services it can offer.  I think the government is very much fixated on firming using long duration storage, but what that kind of ignores is the fact that a lot of merchant revenues can be created from the short duration battery, so, there's a… you know it's a swings and roundabouts argument there as well.

PN: I'm very much having worked in at least pumped hydro and batteries.  I mean there's no doubt that there are clear locational attributes that favour batteries in terms of the capacity to deploy them and that's an advantage that probably relevant to things like Cogatti and the like and that point of view and how you actually deal with some of the system support technology, some of the system support attributes that you have.  So it may even be that some things are better at providing firming service, and some are better at providing other types of services and you need to be careful not just to do a broad sweeping statement along the lines of what's in the roadmap.

NC: That's right. I would agree with that. 

PN: Yeah, and I suppose that Nick that just probably also leads onto sort of the differences between utility scale batteries and small batteries and I think particularly, rather than the other forms of energy storage, they'll give rise to some fairly interesting outcomes and certainly even in the sort of integrating energy storage into the system paper by AIMO, sort of starts to highlight what are we doing with small batteries because it's not, it's not been a feature of the market in the past, it's been treated more like the deployment of solar panels on roofs but it clearly has got a lot more functionality than that.

NC: Yeah, that's right.  You know I think that the part of this whole discussion as you're saying, that's kind of been left out of the role of behind the meter storage as well as you know less than five megawatt grid connected systems and how they can all participate in various pieces of the merchant markets and the other services that they offer.  So I think, I think you know virtual power plants, as well as CNI battery systems and then the whole model as you've mentioned previously the five megawatt less than five megawatt model and the ability for those systems to participate in the markets at a much lower, installed cost, I think are very, very interesting and will play a large role, but I feel like as you're indicating that they've kind of been, kind of been left out here a little bit.

PN: Yeah and I think in some ways Nick, all of these comments that we've got in terms of what are the services that can be provided all go to in fact what type of products and what type of revenue streams you can see for these sorts of energy storage systems and again this is where I'm a little bit concerned at what you're… what's being proposed is as an economic proposition, is really the energy market side of things.  I suppose the prospect of development of other types of revenue streams and I think we'll come back to this a little bit later when we talk about some of the new developments but it strikes me that when you start to line up the various services that you can provide, what thought is going to be given to the establishment of markets for those services?

NC: Yeah, that's right and it's not just the, it is the establishment of the market, but it's also transparency on the process in terms of, you know, how do you, no one can, well, maybe people can but I definitely can't have a good conversation around how does, how do you monetise a battery to voltage support services or how do they participate in SRASS or any of these other system restart services?  I mean it's all, it's quite opaque and it's hard to get quality information about how to do that and I think that's going to be an ongoing problem over and above what you're saying there. 

PN: So Nick, given, given the sort of wide range of attributes and the value and deployment of energy storage systems, I thought it might be just useful that we chat a bit about barriers to deployment.  So if you think about what the roadmap has said, is that's definitely a stretch goal to get the deployment of the energy storage systems for firming purposes, but, it strikes me that there's a whole series of barriers that we're seeing at the moment which explain why we haven't seen the sort of level of deployment of batteries by safe comparison with what we've seen with wind and solar over the last 4 or five years.  So, what I thought I might do is, Nick ask you sort of given your experience what are some of the technical issues that are impacting upon that deployment and then probably ask you also some questions about the economic impacts, because as a lawyer I know a little bit, but I'm dangerous to talk about those things. 

NC: Yeah, no problem.  I think my list of techno economic barriers to storage is pretty long. It's not an easy, I think what those involved in rolling out these sorts of systems are learning if you compare and contrast them to say a solar farm or a wind farm is that know, they're all hard but storage has some pretty unique characteristics which can potentially make it even harder and I think, I think that effectively lends itself to not really rolling them out as potentially as quickly as people think are going to happen and on my list Paul, I guess now, I've got, obviously costs, the overall cost of the system is a key one.  The other one that I think is actually quite interesting to think about is supply of the equipment.  So, we kind of just expect that in Australia we can snap our fingers and all of a sudden suppliers will come rushing in and supply storage systems, but the reality is, that there's so many projects happening around the world now, that most of the OEMs are actually supply constrained in some way, not necessarily all the time, but it's not, it's not as straightforward as just saying well we've got to 100 meg battery therefore you must supply, because they're competing with much larger batteries in other markets so that's something else as the manufacturing capability ramps up.  The other one which is… it's not really a technical issue, it's more of a commercial one, but one of the ones that I think is becoming quite interesting is the bankability of OEMs and counterparties around if you did have a battery project that was able to be project financed.  How do you, you know, at what level are the OEMs in terms of bankability, so that is… you know, creditworthiness, documentation, suitability, how can the organisation deal with a full on bank DD process for example.  They are I think becoming more material issues.  Of course, as we have just discussed the other challenges are really recognising support services that they can offer, you know and access to the markets as we have discussed.  But I think the other ones that are really high on my list are the usual suspects, which are grid, grid strength and location and selecting that location is becoming more and more relevant and then that kind of ties into the cost of the grid connection which is I think probably the biggest swing factor that I am seeing in projects now.  And of course, Paul as you know well, GPS getting access to a GPS letter and how that links to the, the surrounding network, I think they are still, even today, you know, still quite challenging for storage systems in Australia. 

PN: Yeah, I think that they're challenging for most systems at the moment, but certainly in terms of understanding energy systems and it strikes me quite interesting, that what we are seeing is certainly with the number of the renewable projects is things like the deployment of synchronous condensers, as opposed to sort of looking at what might be, particularly with batteries, over other energy storage technologies, looking at how they're deployed and integrated into these arrangements and it seems to me that from a technology point of view where we are using a bit of old world technology to solve some of these issues, where energy storage could actually be available.

NC: Yeah, I would agree with that, yep.

PN: And I suppose the thing from my perspective when you look at it and say well, I think your comment earlier, Nick absolutely which is that how do you deal with the revenue and the revenue opportunities from energy storage systems where things like network support and the sort of the ancillary services market, how that operates and as you say access to other… so, if you look at the technology itself so what can it do, sort of how you actually encourage that technology to be used, other than to meet the energy market outcome and I noticed things like the for those, I mean most people just crawl their way through the Energy Security Board's paper but there's a really interesting piece there in terms of how they expect those sort of service markets to operate and the extent to which, I think your point is, that transparency is really, really important and the capacity to probably forecast in those markets is also very important and they are the sort of things at the moment strike me as somewhat as sort of economic barriers to these arrangements and it's quite different from some other markets because at the end of the day, at least in the national electricity market and to an extent even in the WA market these things are driven by markets created by the regulation as opposed to markets created by commerce that have been regulated.

NC: Yeah, that's right, that's right and I think this all ties into, in my, my position where I sit now, I guess the investment signals into these projects and you know the bulk of what we've got now apart from schemes like, like SIPs or other potential contracts that can be signed, is purely merchant.  That's still whilst I think people's knowledge is increasing and as you pointed out, Paul that you know FCASS is a real thing, several years ago I think we didn't think it was particularly real but it is and it makes good money as demonstrated by Hornsdale and others, but it is still merchant and taking those merchant revenues and making a bankable project is still tough and so I think the future really has to be taking some of these additional services that you've mentioned and really having a transparent way that creates strong investment signals into making them contracted revenue streams so for example, you know, is there a framework that can be generated to have a battery in a particular location offering a 10 year contract for voltage support services, for example.  Even if the money flowing from that contract isn't you know huge, just having that amount of contracted revenue there or a little bit contracted over and above the merchant is really important and I think frankly that is the limiting factor here for that for rolling out storage.

PN: Look, it makes sense and it's sort of the concept that you have some long-term revenue which underpins or partly underpins the project and then that allows the merchant position to be something that can be managed differently and I think this sort of goes back to, well what I think the goal is in this roadmap is how do you make sure that there's the deployment of these energy storage systems that bring these other services but it's almost like flipping the question for the proposition to say and as a result of the deployment of these systems you will get the opportunity to firm in the energy market as opposed to that’s the primary purpose of these things, so just an interesting sort of perspective on that on these arrangements.

NC: Yeah I think that's right it really could warrant having it flipped on its head in that sense that's right?

PN: Exactly.  Maybe we should have a look at regulatory barriers, Nick, from that point of view.

NC: Yeah, so I was just, maybe we can kick into regulatory barriers.  I suppose Paul, as you mentioned at the start, you know, we work together on the Gannawarra Edify Project and that was quite challenging, I think you've still got some war wounds there around that project!  But it was a very, very interesting and important project to the market I think, and I wonder with that project, what do you think the lessons that have been learned there from a regulatory perspective?

PN: Yeah, that's a really good question, Nick and actually when you read the recent publications, the AMC Publications on integration of Energy Storage Systems you realise that some of the work that we did is still kicking around and people are still trying to find a solution.  I think in some ways it's useful to go through what I think there are about five key regulatory issues that we found in developing that project and quite frankly, we found square pegs into round holes solutions for what is what I would describe them as, and looked through the really the co-operative nature of AIMO and others to actually get this project off the ground.  But I thought it'd be helpful just to look at those and see whether those things are being addressed, because I suppose from the point of view of the sort of goals that we're talking about here, in the roadmap, the concept of actually having fully integrated co-located energy storage and renewable generation, I think is one of the key goals that this government has, rather than just simply necessarily the deployment of energy storage systems on their own, other than the opportunity to fit into those things, so it's sort of how are those reforms and dealing with those regulatory issues?

So the first of the things that we really struggled with was in fact how you classify an energy storage system and I think as most people would realise, an energy storage system that's utility scale, gets registered above five megawatts, gets registered in the NEM as both a market generator and a market customer, and there are various different obligations and issues that arise in terms of how bids are made etc for those purposes and instead of saying at least in the current proposals being considered by AIMO for a bio-directional resource provider, there is thought being put into how you clarify that position and looking at the capacity of the facility to work together and also how, in fact hybrid positions will operate.

The next issue we had was, in fact, how the combined sort of battery and solar generator would be involved in centralised dispatch.  So, as you will appreciate, any batteries above five megawatts are required to participate in central dispatch and be a scheduled generator.  Whereas, the renewable projects are of course semi-scheduled on how they operate together and look that caused a lot of issues in the Gannawarra project and the current reforms in respect of the hybrid arrangements and the bio-directional facilities go part way to addressing this issue in terms of being able to have a single facility with those on it, but you're still operating them effectively as different DUDI even if it's the D U I D level, rather than at the overall facility level, I'll come back to an issue but it also assumes a single ownership for the whole of the hybrid system, which I think then produces some quite uneconomic or sort of less than optimal economic outcomes in terms of how revenue issues are dealt with and requires synthetic outcomes rather than really outcomes, and this has just not been considered in the consultation paper.

The third issue that we have and it's hardly surprising is, in fact, what are the charges that are payable, by that sort of bio-energy storage system because by its very nature, it is a load as well as a generator and as most of you will appreciate in, in the NEM system customers pay for use of system charges and both at the transmission and the distribution level for a load and generators don't pay this and there's a whole lot of work in relation to transparency of these types of charges that has driven that type of system, so that ultimately, the AER can regulate what is paid by customers at the customer end without it being sort of absorbed into overall energy charges.  But interestingly in the proposals and what we've also found is that there has already been a number of the new projects where projects have been exempted from the application of TUoS, but TUoS has not been as well dealt with and the papers that are published at the moment contemplate, that TUoS will be payable on load for an energy storage system where they connect with distribution network. It's fair to say, I think, in almost all the submissions made, almost all of them have said that doesn't make sense, why would TUoS be payable and not TUos and if you look at the nature in which the way in which this can function

It might not sound like a big issue, but the dollars involved in paying for use of system charges is significant and in terms of the economics of actually putting, deploying these projects is really affected by those arrangements and in some ways it almost fails to have regard to the services that are brought to the network by the project.

The other piece which is sort of… was a regulatory and economic issue that we had at Gannawarra which still I think is sitting out there.  What we… that was a solar farm where there was a retrofit of the energy storage system so there were two or three things that really arise when you look to do a retrofit and particularly under the current sort of proposals is, there is a risk associated with the potential for a new GPS and Nick, as you rightly said obtaining GPS, etc is difficult and the rules are changing in terms of the conditions that will apply.  We know that system strength issues are changing and the addition of a new system or new plant in a retrofit will open up those issues potentially again and one of the issues that we implemented at Gannawarra, which I think still is something that people have to think about, is the need to establish a network and the reason for that was so that the already built a project financed facility was effectively ringfenced from the implications and the… of the introduction of new plant, so that it wasn't, its GPS wasn't changed and it didn't get exposed to increased system strength costs and there's obviously issues in respect of how the two systems operate.  But very significant issues for the Gannawarra project and a part of our square peg round hole solution was to create a registered network between the battery and the solar farm and I think this issue is still not being addressed at all in the materials that we've seen and it sort of and I think it really again this sort of issue of imposes real limitations on the deployment and ownership of facilities and a significant barrier to actually achieving what the Government is looking to.  So I'll stop there Nick, you mentioned, 534A and 534B process. We are all living those at the moment and I think they are a significant issue for any deployment of projects at the moment.

NC: Yeah, that's right.  I think that's a great summary of the Gannawarra process and as you pointed out, I think you know I think it's pretty clear that retrofitting storage to existing renewable assets is definitely an area that you know has pretty strong merit and as you're indicating, it's still not that much easier than it was three years ago or whatever it was to do this and it's yeah, I think that is an area that really needs some focus but that's a great, a great summary.

PN: And Nick I suppose, I would just be interested in your views in terms of the sub five megawatt storage, more your experience at Tesla but as you say virtual power plants and the others is a real opportunity for how you bring them into the market and the extension to ancillary services.

NC: Yeah. Thanks, Paul. I think five megawatt systems or smaller systems are really interesting.  I think as I mentioned earlier, the role that they are going to play in the energy transition is… is clearly underestimated at the moment.  I think, depending on the scenario that you're trying to do, a smaller battery in, it can be… there's a big swing factor again around installation and connection costs, depending on where you're trying to do it.  I do know of people that have literally gone around to a whole range of substations as opposed to terminal stations and looked at the connectability of five megawatt systems and similarly, retrofitting five megawatt systems to existing renewable plant substations and I think all of those things, there's a number of business models out there that people are looking at.  I think, so that's going to be a very interesting class.  I think the issues with that though, as you've indicated, are still access to the markets.  I know that there are rule changes happening now and I know that the guys, that AIMO are working hard on the virtual power plant in South Australia as one case study in terms of the total suite of VPP's they are looking at and producing some great progress on rule changes but how that works fully.  How does AIMO get visibility over the large numbers of systems? How do things like the AGC signal reach those systems if they are going to participate fully in regulation, FCASS for example and then to your point, which I don't know has fully been resolved, is how does TUoS get applied to a smaller battery depending on its scenario.  I think if those things can get, again made more clear, I think that allows people to come up with some new innovative business models in that space and if that does happen, it's going to be a pretty significant element in the energy transition.

PN: It certainly is and again, just mindful of … if the goal is to is to get these firming products things like VPPs and other things that become an important and sort of a different type of deployment outcome, which will go to achieving the Government's goal?

NC: That's right.  Interesting.  Yeah… so, Paul, just in terms of contracting issues, in your experience, do you have any comments to make around the products in the marketplace, with respect to those contracting issues in terms of how the roadmap could be achieved in terms of firming products?

PN: Yeah, it's interesting that the Government's focusing on firming products and the I sort of reflected on that when read I that and said, well, what are the actual contractual models that are being used for energy storage systems, at the moment.  So, Hornsdale is obviously a state backed capacity contract and it's participating in the FCASS market but in almost all cases, other cases with the contracts that we've seen at the moment there's been a sale of effectively despatch rights of the systems to retailers and principally gen-tailers and some pumped hydro particular projects at Wivenhoe in the past, and to the extent Snowy being supported by the sale of capped products or indeed the sale of dispatch rights, so they're not conditional firming products, they're not looking at selling particular types of swap products or firm swap products for specific price periods, beyond the traditional peak and off peak periods.  I think that those products are sort of pretty [*].  There's a few put products out there that had been looking at doing some firming, particularly sort of in the evening period, but they really haven't sort of caught on as yet and the issue is how are they going to be valued and the premium to be paid for what is essentially in part an insurance product for firming. 

Obviously, those retailers who are dealing with the despatch rights are using these energy storage systems as a way of managing their overall portfolio using the natural hedge that might arise, but it's sort of, I think these are products yet to come so it's one of the things that will have to be developed if we are going to actually achieve that roadmap goal, from that point of view.  So Nick have you got any views on the contract market and where it should go? 

NC: Yeah, I think this is a really interesting area and I think a lot of movement.  I think we are going to see a lot of movement in this space over the next set of 12, 12 months or so.  I think know one of the ones that everyone's familiar with is just your traditional cap.  We are all waiting with baited breath to see how the five minute settlement impacted that.  Unfortunately we have got to wait a little bit longer there.  I think that will be a very interesting way of capturing some more firm revenues for a storage system.  Similarly, as you've mentioned you know that the super PICA product, the super PICA capped product which, you know, ASX and others are looking at introducing in the evening period, that's another great product, that could trade quite well but I think to your point and it sort of comes into the world of more bespoke contracting products, this whole concept of portfolio optimisation between multiple renewable assets and multiple storage systems and combining them into a portfolio.  I think that's where the answer is and I think that can be a function of you know synthetic market based products but also physical firming, and I think the intersection of those two things is really where it's going, that kind of the nirvana for how you actually achieve the inverted commas turning from the Government.

PN: Yeah, that's a really, I think that's a good point, Nick, and I think that's sort of, again, my experience has been that in this sector, that there are a whole series of smart people out there who are sophisticated enough to develop these types of products.  The key is whether the products and the arrangements are sufficient to support the development of the projects and I think as I say, that the sort of issues we talk about markets and other things, so that will all go to those issues, but my sense is that a series of new contracts will need to be developed, my sense also is that as we start to move into market design changes, which DSB is promoting, that we will also start to see other types of products in the market place and it's interesting with the demand response mechanism rules that have come in which when you think about it, sort of is about batteries behind the meter as much as and small generators as much as anything else.  What sort of products we might see developed in that market place where that sort of alters the way in which the market operates and it also goes to things like the two sided markets.  So, there's a whole lot of moving pieces and trying to actually develop the contract that will match is going to be quite interesting.  

NC: It is and I guess just as a final comment, Paul, just on that the good news is that flexibility is provided by storage.  So battery storage is the most flexible product out there and so all of these things can be supported I think in the future with that technology.  

PN: That has been great Nick and we haven't had any Q&A come through, but if anybody actually had a burning question, please pop it through now.  But while I'm waiting for those, Nick, I wanted to just thank you very much for your time.  For those who didn't know Nick has been away for a week and a half, or two weeks and one can in Melbourne, which is basically hiding away, I think, Isn't it, Nick?  

NC: That's right [laughing].

PN: And I really want to thank you for participating in this session, I don't think we have transverse a lot of areas and again ideally if the review of the roadmap and the Federal Government is to drive these outcomes, I think there's still a lot of work to be done to ensure the deployment of energy storage systems to achieve that goal.  So, I think that to me is that the parting message from today's session.  Nick, I don't know whether you had any other overview that you wanted to make.

NC: Well, firstly, thanks for having us in the session, it's been great. I'm happy to support but yeah, I echo those comments. I think as I said at the end there the flexibility of these technologies and the price of them, the cost of them is going to continue to decline, so I think, I think eventually we'll reach a situation where all of these things will intersect. 

PN: Great on that note, it's coming up to 1:15 in in southern states, 12:15, where I am.  I'd just like to thank everybody for participating in this and I hope you found this as useful as some of our other sessions.  We've got a further session on the hydrogen goal on 9 November but thank you very much for your participation, and once again Nick, thank you very much for participating and your excellent comments.

NC: Thanks Paul, thanks everyone.