Energy storage will be a crucial part of the plan. Batteries and other storage technologies can help soak up excess power and energy produced during sunny hours and make it available to the grid in the evenings which will allow more renewable energy projects to connect to the grid safely. Storage, in conjunction with other technologies, can also help address other voltage, frequency and power quality issues in the grid and can help make the electricity system more resilient.
Barbados will depend on BLPC and other private-sector developers to build the storage network that is needed to achieve these benefits. However, they will only be able to access financing required to move ahead with projects if there is a compelling tariff and stable regulatory regime in place for storage. As discussed below with respect to the CETR and ETS, work has begun on designing compelling but reasonable energy tariffs. Other regulatory work – including for environmental approvals and safety – also needs to be undertaken with urgency.
Creating the proper framework for energy storage is delicate but urgently required. Energy storage is inherently more complex than solar PV generation. Batteries can provide many services to the grid, each of which puts different demands on the storage system and has a different cost profile. Energy storage is also expensive (although global trends may help push costs down). Any large-scale storage deployment will have a customer bill impact that must be considered and mitigated. But by enabling the ongoing shift to renewable energy, energy storage will help deliver long-term benefits to Barbados in the form of a stable and predictable cost of energy that is not exposed to the fluctuating price of oil.
The bottom line is that energy storage and other mitigation measures are essential, without which Barbados will fall well short of its goal of transitioning to 100% renewable energy.