The New Kid on the Block: Battery energy storage systems and hybrid plants

Energy storage projects, particularly battery energy storage systems (BESSs), have flooded interconnection queues across North America seemingly “overnight.” Stand-alone BESS projects as well as BESSs coupled with renewable energy generation components—hybrid plants—are some of the most common resources being studied for interconnection and will likely constitute a significant portion of the resource mix in the future. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) reports that at the end of 2020, there was roughly 755 GW of total generation capacity with 200 GW of energy storage projects in interconnection queues.