Olivine and the California Energy Commission (CEC) partnered on the Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) Program to test multiple-use applications of energy storage with the aim of maximizing benefits for the electricity customer, the electricity grid, and the environment.
As a subcontractor to Center for Sustainable Energy on the STEEL project under the California Energy Commission’s (CEC) Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) Program, Olivine was responsible for market integration, dispatching resources in response to wholesale market awards, and performing additional simulations to validate the resource potential of behind-the-meter energy storage and other demand response technology portfolios. The project demonstrated how these applied technologies could decrease customer utility bills through a combination of “active” and “passive” efficiency measures and on-site solar photovoltaic generation-to-storage while also earning revenue by direct participation in the California wholesale energy and ancillary services markets — as Proxy Demand Resources.
Of particular note, an aggregation of five high school sites with solar powered battery storage provided spinning reserves in the CAISO market and also simulated frequency regulation, demonstrating how resources could tap multiple revenue streams and provide benefits to the grid, utilities, and consumers. This was the first resource to provide ancillary services in the CAISO market from demand-side resources utilities the Meter Generator Output (MGO), or sub-metering performance methodology.