Press Release - Aurora Energy Research On Pacific Northwest Storage Deployment
Press release originally published by Aurora Energy Research
New Aurora report identifies the barriers constraining battery storage in the PNW — and the reforms needed to deploy it at scale.
Austin, TX (AURORA ENERGY RESEARCH) – A new report from Aurora Energy Research, prepared for Renewable Northwest, finds that battery storage is uniquely positioned to support the Pacific Northwest’s rapidly changing grid, but that outdated markets, planning frameworks, and development bottlenecks are preventing its deployment at the scale the region needs.
The Pacific Northwest is entering a period of rapid transition. After decades of flat demand and hydro-driven stability, load growth is accelerating, driven by electrification, population growth, and a surge in data center deployment, just as the thermal fleet ages out. Renewable deployment is further constrained by BPA’s chronically backlogged interconnection queue, which was built for incremental thermal additions and cannot handle the volume of storage and renewable capacity the region needs.
Storage is well suited to address all three sides of the region’s energy trilemma: reliability, affordability, and decarbonization. It deploys faster than thermal or hydro, can shift renewable generation to when it’s needed, ease grid congestion, and deliver ancillary services more cheaply than thermal plants. Declining battery costs mean solar paired with storage is now cost-competitive with new gas on an LCOE basis.
Yet current markets and planning frameworks systematically undervalue storage. New regional day-ahead markets still lack an ancillary services market, leaving a major portion of storage’s value unpriced. In early storage markets like CAISO, ancillary services accounted for 60–90% of battery revenues at the outset of large-scale deployment. Utility resource plans remain centered on simple capacity mandates that miss storage’s contributions to congestion relief and transmission deferrals, while conservative ELCC accreditation methodologies further suppress its recognized capacity value.
The report calls for reform on three fronts: updating planning frameworks through IRP reform, performance-based ratemaking, and revised ELCC methodology; creating revenue streams that reflect storage’s value through ancillary services markets and stronger resource adequacy frameworks; and removing development bottlenecks by prioritizing interconnection queue reform, eliminating point-to-point transmission rights barriers, and streamlining siting and permitting.
ABOUT AURORA ENERGY RESEARCH
Established in 2013, Aurora Energy Research is a leading global provider of power market forecasting and analytics for critical investment and financing decisions for more than 1,000 clients. Headquartered in Oxford, we operate out of 18 offices worldwide covering Europe, North & South America, Asia, and Australia. Our comprehensive services include market outlook packages for energy industry participants, advisory support, and innovative software solutions. We foster diversity with a team of over 1000 experts with backgrounds in energy, finance, and consulting, offering unparalleled expertise across power, renewables, storage, hydrogen, carbon, and fossil commodities. Our mission is to ease the global energy transition through widely trusted quantitative analysis and high-quality decision support.
ABOUT RENEWABLE NORTHWEST
Renewable Northwest is a regional, nonprofit renewable energy advocacy organization dedicated to strengthening and expanding clean energy infrastructure in the Pacific Northwest to support electricity demand, grid reliability and resilience, and decarbonization.
