Microgrids in the service territories of California’s main investor-owned utilities (IOU) could get a wider opportunity to help solve the state’s challenging energy situation with wildfire season approaching.

The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), is planning to host a technical conference on ‘hybrid resources’ – energy storage paired with generation – in July this year.

Not only can energy storage be used to “mimic” the roles of existing assets in the electricity network, a gigawatt-scale initiative in Germany shows how ways of thinking about energy storage could save transmission and networks “billions of dollars”, the COO of Fluence has said.

The “devil is in the detail” when it comes to making regulatory changes in the US to open up wholesale markets for energy storage to participate in, a regional chief of regulator FERC has said.

UK energy regulator Ofgem has published guidance outlining how developers and asset owners can add storage to their subsidised solar installations without losing accreditation to the Renewables Obligation (RO) and Feed-in Tariff (FiT).

Moves by the US’ Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to assess electricity storage’s potential role in wholesale markets and in maintaining a low-cost, reliable network have been welcomed by the Washington-headquartered Energy Storage Association.