Texas would benefit from 5,000 MW of energy storage

The deployment of grid-integrated distributed energy storage in Texas could provide substantial benefits to the power system in ERCOT and its customers, according to a reported conducted by The Brattle Group.

The report, commissioned by Oncor Electric Delivery Co. evaluates whether storage could be cost-effectively deployed from the perspectives of retail customers, wholesale electricity market participants, and the combined system or “society as a whole” while maintaining wholesale power prices that continue to support necessary generation investments.

The Brattle report estimates that 3,000 to 5,000-MW of grid-integrated, distributed electricity storage would be the most cost-effective for ERCOT, based on a forecast of installed cost of storage of about $350/kWh.


From an electricity customer’s perspective, deploying storage across ERCOT would decrease customer bills slightly and provide reliability benefits in the form of reduced power outages for customers located in areas where storage is installed.


The authors show that enabling cost-effective investments in electricity storage will require a regulatory framework that helps investors capture the combined values of storage from the wholesale market and customer outage reduction. The authors recommend a regulatory framework that would involve allowing companies to deploy the electricity storage on the distribution system and “auction off” to independent third parties the rights to use the storage facilities for participation in the wholesale market.