SPEER wants you to know the Washington, DC-based Energy Storage Association is hosting the first Texas Energy Storage Summit, in Austin on December 5th.  

This will be a one-day workshop in Austin, aimed at bringing together the larger international storage industry (manufacturers, developers, system owner-operators, researchers) with activities and market participants engaged in or interested in energy storage in Texas.  There will also be a welcoming reception the evening before at the Hilton, the conference venue.  This will be a great opportunity for Texans to learn more about what is planned or underway already.  There will be four panels aimed at not only addressing, but stimulating a dialogue with the audience on:

  • Distribution Level, Microgrid, and Customer Applications
  • Transmission Level/Utility-Scale Applications and Opportunities
  • Industry-University Research and Development Collaboration
  • Policy and Energy Storage Futures

Did you know Oncor has launched an effort to explore the value of distribution level storage applications, as has Austin Energy and a Panhandle Cooperative?  Did you know that there are already 45 MW of electric storage on the transmission system in ERCOT?  Or that there are over 800 MW in the interconnection queue?  Thermal storage is making a come-back, but in some states, customers are also installing electric storage on site—with or without solar panels—to shift their loads in response to electric rates.  Did you know ERCOT is completely remaking their Ancillary Services in order to take advantage of emerging technologies like storage to maintain power quality and reliability at ever greater efficiency?

This will be a relatively small conference, in which the audience participation will be encouraged.  Speakers will include: Brad Jones, VP of ERCOT, who is leading the new market design efforts; Calvin Crowder, President of Electric Transmission Texas (a partnership of MidAmerican and AEP which owns a 4.5 MW storage facility); Carl Mansfield, VP of Sharp’s new SmartStorage Group; Jack Farley, President of Apex, a new compressed air energy storage firm in the interconnection queue at ERCOT, and more.

Members of the South-Central Partnership for Energy Efficiency as a Resource (SPEER) may receive a $50 discount of the Regular fee by using code: SPEERTESS14.