The Ontario Independent Electricity System Operator issued a report on Dec. 20 identifying obstacles and mitigating strategies to ensure that energy storage resources can be integrated into its market and can compete in the delivery of services when feasible.

• The report calls for clarity in the market rules, Ontario Energy Board codes, and legislation and regulation to facilitate energy storage participation, since the current electricity market was created before widespread adoption of distributed energy resources, including storage.
• The recommendations are based on input from the energy storage advisory group established by the grid operator in April 2018 to help examine evolving policy, rules, processes, and tools to better enable the integration of storage resources within its market.
• The move towards a “competitive and technology-neutral approach” to secure products and services requires these resources to have the ability to compete for market services to ensure that their potential value is realized in achieving cost and reliability outcomes, the grid operator said.
• The growing role of energy storage in maintaining system reliability and resiliency has led system operators to explore ways to integrate storage technologies into their systems.